Wearing and Tearing
by gaelicspirit
Summary: Pre-Series. With Sam at school, John and Dean must find a way to connect and survive. When John is hurt in a hunt, Dean is forced to pick up the pieces. However, when a ghost threatens to take Dean down, it's up to his father to keep him from fading.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own 'em. More's the pity.

**Spoiler:** None. Pre-series. Story title from Led Zeppelin song of the same name.

**a/n**: This story assumes some facts gleaned from TV canon, with my own interpretive modifications. I haven't read the published "John Winchester Journal," nor have I looked anything up online pertaining to that work. It's more out of laziness than stubbornness on my part, but I figured what's shown on TV is universal—the other works, not so much.

I'm going with this timeline: Sam began attending Stanford in the fall of 2001 at the age of 18. Dean would have been 22. Dean states in the _Pilot_, "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing." This story assumes Sam was actually in his **fourth** year at Stanford when Dean arrived asking for his help to find John, and that Dean's statement was actually in reference to an unknown event mid-way through Sam's college career where the brothers parted ways—Dean to hunting, Sam to school—and 'lost' contact.

With that, I wanted to say up-front that Sam is in this story through reference and memory only. This is an exploration of a particular father/son relationship; it centers on John and Dean in the weeks and months that follow Sam's departure. If you choose to read, I do hope you enjoy.

Slainte!

* * *

_In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed.  
So it is with Time in one's life._

Marcel Proust

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_September, 2001_

He could still remember the first time his father had given him a handgun. He remembered the impossible weight of it, the way his fingers almost-but-not-quite wrapped around the textured rubber of the grip, how terrified he'd been.

Not of the weapon. But of letting his father down. Of doing it wrong.

That same day, he'd walked away from an abandoned lot—his hands blistered, fingers bleeding from catching his skin in the slide, arms and backside aching from the kick, ears ringing from the concussion of sound—with four tin cans obliterated.

He was six years old.

"Okay," he said, peering into the storm-darkened afternoon. "You go low, I'll go high."

"What?"

Dean shook the rain from his hair, eyes blinking away the flat splatters. He spit out a mouthful of water as he glanced at the man on his right. "I go high, you go low?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" John said, irritation lacing his words.

"Taking out that son of a bitch," Dean replied, raising his voice over the increasing noise of the desert storm, reminding himself too late that he wasn't hunting with Sam. He wasn't lead dog here, and humor was lost on this alpha.

"Dean. Focus!"

Curling his lips in against his teeth—mostly to keep from choking on rain—Dean nodded once, spinning his .45 on his middle finger and adjusting the balance of it in the palm of his hand.

"Right. Sorry," he snapped, running his free hand down the length of his face. Even at six, four cans hadn't been eight, and eight had been what John set up for him to shoot.

"We're going to have to catch it in a cross-fire," John yelled, peering at Dean through the storm.

The Arizona monsoon kicked up thick, red mud that coated everything around them; the rain came hard and fast, turning the parched, cracked earth into a flood zone. Dean felt the rushing water tug at his pant cuffs, and he slipped a bit as the sole of his boots lost purchase on the slick ground.

"Can't see shit out here, Dad," Dean yelled back, hesitant to question his father's orders, but wary of firing at the thing into a storm, knowing his father could easily be on the receiving end of the bullet. "You sure?"

"I'm sure," John replied, water spraying from his lips and soaking his thickening beard.

John hadn't shaved since Sam left. Dean knew he hadn't slept much, either. Or eaten. In fact, in the two weeks since he'd last seen his brother, Dean hadn't watched his father do anything consistently except drink and hunt.

"It's a chupacabra," Dean said unnecessarily. "Bastard's not going down easy."

John pivoted to face him, somehow maintaining his balance in the increasing ferocity of the rushing water. "Which is exactly why we come at it from both sides, fill it with silver, end of story. You got me?"

Dean swallowed, backed down more by the flinty glare in his father's dark eyes than the bite at the end of each word.

"I got you."

John's nod indicated he accepted Dean's words as submission, and he flicked the tip of his pistol to the right. Dean squared his shoulders, then crossed in front of his father, making his way through the wash of water, around a cluster of mesquite trees. The creature was atop a rise—that was beginning to look like an island in the rising flood—feasting on what had once been a coyote.

It was mid-day, but the rain had turned the sky dark as quickly as it had churned the air into mud. He was forced to sluice water from his features twice before he could clearly make out the hunched form of the creature. Making sure he could see both the shadowed image of the chupacabra and the basic position of his father, Dean raised his weapon.

John would fire first, he knew. One second after John's shot, Dean would begin emptying his weapon into the body of the creature. He knew that even hampered by exhaustion, there was no better shot in the world than John Winchester.

The first shot cracked as loud as thunder, startling the creature and causing it to lift his head. Dean started firing and didn't let up until his hammer clicked on an empty round. The creature had fallen with the third shot. It had stopped screaming with the sixth. But he fired until his clip was empty.

"Dad!" Dean shouted, straightening.

"Clear!" John replied. "You good?"

"Yea—" Dean started to answer, but his words were cut short as a chunk of earth and rock broke free from the rise that held the chupacabra's body and tumbled through the flash flood directly at him.

On impulse, Dean tried to dodge to the side. The earth seemed to vanish beneath him and he went down hard, air tripping on itself in a rushed exodus from his lungs. The tumbling rock cracked against his head, snapping his neck back and to the right. With an instinctive gasp, Dean brought in a gulp of water, choking, as his vision went from dim to gray, and then faded to black as he was carried in a tangle of loose, uncooperative limbs through the flash flood and off into the desert.

As if suspended in a surreal fog, he felt his body catch and hold, the frigid rainwater slamming against him in a rush. As if he'd slipped his skin, Dean peered down at himself, watching with mild disinterest as a figure approached the edge of the newly-formed gully, dropped to its knees and reached for his body. His jacket had caught—miraculously—on the out flung branch of a mesquite tree; he saw himself hanging limp, buffeted by the water, as the figure wrapped strong fingers around his wrist and yanked.

With a sudden rush, he was back, his consciousness thrashing against the confines of the dark, desperate to surface.

"…ean…"

He struggled to breathe, to cough. His lungs were thick, his body heavy.

"Don't… this…"

Words bobbed in his ears, slipping in and out of meaning. A flash of brilliant pain, white-hot and sudden, spread from the center of his chest to his sluggish limbs, pounding with ferocity through his head. Again. And again.

With a nauseating surge, the heaviness in his lungs exploded, raking his throat in its eagerness to escape. He gagged, desperate for air. Hands at his back turned him, helping him curl in on himself. He coughed, dragging in precious air, choking on it. Hands moved from his back to his neck, the shock of warmth on his cold skin sending shivers through his tortured system.

"Easy, just breathe, Dean."

The order was soft, almost gentle, with an undercurrent of trembling panic. It took him a moment to place the voice, to understand that the hands holding him together in this moment belonged to his father. John's hand skidded from his neck to grasp his face, turning him and encouraging him to open his eyes with repetitive, gentle strokes of his thumb across the plains of his cheeks.

"You with me, Son?"

Dean opened his mouth to reply and ended up doubling over in ragged coughs once more. His chest and throat were lit with pain and he felt himself groan from the inside out. The rain pelted mercilessly down and he felt John shift his body closer. He found himself unable to resist, unable to move. He was tucked up against his father's chest, his head resting on John's collar bone, his father's hands holding him still.

"You're okay," he heard his father repeating. "You're okay, Son. I gotcha… I gotcha."

Dean nodded against his father's chest, torn skin at his temple pulling as it rubbed on the material of John's coat. He lifted a weighted hand and clumsily patted his father's arm, trying to reassure him and keep him close—for just another moment—with the same motion. He felt John take a shuddering breath, felt the impact of his father's heart against his body, and was released.

"You think you can stand?" John asked, not quite looking at him.

Dean felt John's focus begin to stray, now that the immediate danger was past. Afraid that speaking would bring on another round of rib-cracking coughs, he simply nodded. John stood, mud pulling at his sodden jeans with a _shuck_ing sound. He reached down for Dean's arm, gripping it just below the elbow, and pulled.

Dean knew he was no light weight. Sam had overtaken him in height when his brother was sixteen, but Dean's six-foot frame was lean muscle and solidly built. Coupled with rain-soaked clothes and clay-like mud, Dean expected that lifting him would take effort.

Yet John did so with a quick, hefty jerk, bouncing Dean to his feet as if he were no more significant than a feather. The moment his father released him, however, the storm-darkened world dimmed further and tilted sideways. Dean felt himself sway and was at a loss as to how to find balance.

"Whoa, there, Son," John rumbled, catching him and immediately returning his hand to Dean's arm, lifting it and dropping it easily across his shoulders. Dean was the almost the same size as his father, but he never doubted who of the two was stronger.

"Let's get you back to the truck."

"Dad—" he started, unable to finish as words were swallowed by coughing and the rage of the storm. He shot his eyes toward the barely-visible rise where he'd last seen the chupacabra, unwilling to be taken to safety when the job wasn't finished.

"I'll come back for the 'cabra," John assured him.

Dean resorted to his functional-mute impression and without further protest allowed his father to haul him up the mud-slicked trail along the rain-washed gully, past the matted heap that was the dead chupacabra, through the small thicket of mesquites, and to the waiting black truck. They'd left the Impala at the motel for this hunt, and for once, Dean was glad she wasn't there. He'd never have been able to drive her feeling like this.

John propped Dean up against the truck bed and opened the passenger door. Dean waved off the helping hand and climbed clumsily into the truck, pressing a hand against his sternum and dragging in a relieved, ragged breath at being free of the constant rain.

"I'll be back," John said, clapping a hand on the now-soaked door panel.

"You think… can haul… it—" Dean attempted, his voice barely present even to his own ears. He looked at John squarely in the eyes, needing to know that his father would be okay.

"Don't worry about it, Dean," John reached out and clapped a hand on his arm, splashing water from the fabric with the motion. "I'll just have Sam—"

John stopped, his voice choking off as if an invisible hand suddenly wrapped around his throat. If Dean hadn't been staring straight at him, he didn't think he would have caught the quick, devastated flash of pure pain that shot through John's dark eyes. Dean didn't speak—couldn't speak.

John's mouth worked silently as the lost words scrambled to reassemble themselves and return to the surface in an order that both could bear to hear.

"I'll bury it," he amended. "Gotta hide it for now. We'll come back when the rain stops to burn it."

"Head," Dean reminded him, pushing the word out with effort, wanting volume behind it. _I didn't forget, Dad. I'm still in this fight._

John's mouth quirked into a quick, surprised grin. "I'll cut it off," he said, shaking his head. "Who do you think you're talking to here?"

Dean leaned his head back and closed his eyes. When his door didn't immediately shut, he opened one eye, rolling it in the direction of the opening with a raised eyebrow. John was looking at him, hair matted to his head, water running in a finger-thick river from a twisted point in his tangled beard. Dean lifted his head from the seat, ready to pull his shivering body from the cab of the truck and follow his father back into the storm.

John nodded once, as if deciding something, then stepped back, shutting the door and closing Dean into the safety of the interior.

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His drill Sergeant during basic training had a voice that banged against the air like a gavel, deep but with an undercurrent that warned of dire circumstances should anyone step out of line. That man had died over twenty years ago, but John still heard him. He heard the snap of twisted-off words every time he let one of his sons down.

Slogging back through the mud toward the lump of chupacabra, shovel from the bed of his truck doubling as a pick axe, pulling his body through the muck, he allowed himself exactly five minutes to think of all the ways this could have gone wrong; by the time he returned to Dean, this misstep would be as buried as the chupacabra.

_What if I hadn't found him? What if that branch hadn't caught him? What if I couldn't get him breathing again? What if I'd lost him? What if I'd lost him? What if I'd lost him?_

His stomach had disappeared the moment he'd seen the flying rock take Dean's feet out from under him. When his son went down, carried away by the rushing water, all John could do for one long heartbeat was stare.

If Sam had been there, John knew, Dean would have been in a different position. If Sam had been there, they would have attacked with a different plan. And neither of his boys would have been standing in a gully. Neither of them would have—

_Winchester!_ The drill Sergeant bellowed, the voice loud even in the cacophony of the desert storm. _Suck. It. Up. Soldier! You have a job to do! Focus on the job!_

Curling his trembling hand into a fist he took a steadying breath, then shoved the blade of the shovel into the saturated earth near the base of the mesquite trees Dean had been standing behind. The mud was heavy, his motions hampered by the pull of his wet clothes and the weight of his heart.

He couldn't lose Dean. He _wouldn't_. The very idea was unacceptable. He'd failed with Sam. Lord knows how many ways he'd failed his youngest. Enough so that Sam had left them. Turned his back on his family.

But Dean hadn't. Dean was his constant. _I should tell him that_, John thought, panting from his efforts as he shoved the body of the chupacabra into the hole to hide it until the rains subsided. _One day I'll tell him that_.

Just before he dumped the first shovel of mud back over the body, he stopped short, hearing his son's voice, seeing the pain-heavy eyes flash at him.

_Head_.

"Son of a fuckin' bitch," John growled, irritation with himself making his motions clumsy. He pulled the six-inch Bowie knife he'd seen Dean eyeing with lust on more than one occasion free from its back sheath. Gripping the matted, wet fur of the chupacabra's head, he hacked three times, severing its connection to the body and sending a strange gasp of released power back into the universe.

Tossing the head aside, knowing he'd have to dig a separate hole, he set about burying the body, feeling time tick by, thinking of Dean's injuries, needing to get back to him. There was nothing in his life more terrifying than seeing one of his sons bleeding. Dean wasn't meant to be limp, swaying, flinching in pain. He was built for survival, for fighting. His son was a soldier.

_Because I made him one_.

The hunt finished for now, John trudged tiredly back to his truck, tossing the shovel into the bed as he made his way around to the driver's side. When he opened the door, he felt a pang of dismay at the sight of Dean slumped sideways in the seat, blood trailing down the side of his face, his lips parted to release raspy breaths.

"Dean," John said, closing the door behind him and shutting out the storm.

Dean didn't stir.

"Dammit." John turned on the truck, then flicked the dome light, reaching for his son.

Dean's skin was still cold. John shoved him upright in the seat, gently lifting his eyelid to check his pupils. At the touch of his hands, Dean twitched, turning his face away with a groan.

"Dean?"

"Sammy…"

"Dean," John barked, ignoring the sharp hiss of pain that flashed through his heart at the sound of that name. That name in Dean's ragged voice. "Open your eyes, Son."

Dean's lashes had gathered into small triangles with the water, stirring John's heart with nostalgia, remembering his son at four, at eight, at ten. Wondering when he was truly last a child. He watched Dean's eyes roll under his closed lids, fighting as always to do as ordered.

"Dean." John tapped his cheek gently, exhaling in relief as Dean finally won the internal battle and opened his eyes, blinking owlishly back at him.

"Dad?"

"Hey," John replied, tipping his chin up in a greeting. "Sleepin' on the job?" John held his son's face easily in one hand.

"Just… restin'…"

"How many fingers, Dean?" John held up two fingers in front of Dean's face.

"Peace," Dean muttered. "I'm fine, Dad."

"Yeah, well, you're bleeding all over the inside of my truck."

"Least it isn't the Impala," Dean said, straightening slightly.

His voice had regained some strength and while there was still a catch in it, John didn't hear the liquid rasp that had chilled his heart earlier. Staring at him a moment longer, John mentally flipped a coin: hospital or motel?

"Get on back to the motel," Dean grumbled, groaning as he reached up to tenderly probe his head wound.

"Take it easy there, hero." John lifted an eyebrow, trying to tough-guy his son into focusing. "You're not hurt bad enough to cry about it."

"That water was damn cold," Dean mumbled, wincing as he pulled away blood-smeared fingers.

"I don't think you have a concussion," John said, latent worry vocalizing itself in a gruff bark.

"I don't," Dean sighed, rolling his neck. "I've had enough to know the difference."

John turned to face his steering wheel, twisting the keys to engage the engine and tugging the gear down into drive.

"Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

Dean dropped his head back on the seat as if it were made of whisper-thin glass. "Thanks."

John didn't reply. He tightened his jaw, pulling away from the clearing. He registered Dean flattening his hands on the seat and the door to steady his body as the truck rocked and rumbled across the terrain, but he didn't slow.

They drove in silence—mostly because John simply hadn't thought to turn on the radio. Mentally prioritizing tomorrow's mission—including returning to unbury and burn the body and head of the chupacabra—John ignored any slight hisses or groans that came from the passenger seat. Putting his children in danger had been the nature of the game, and he'd done his level best to keep them from the worst of it.

But Dean was twenty-two, now; by his age, John had survived grueling months in the jungle dodging bullets and sickness until he'd been able to return home to Mary. He'd been married by the time he was Dean's age. He'd been years away from being a father, but he'd known what it was like to owe his life to someone.

Dean knew the dangers of hunting. He knew the risks and the rewards. He knew why they did what they did. He glanced over quickly when Dean coughed once, working more fluid from his lungs. Clenching his jaw, not allowing himself to think, he curled his hands tightly around the steering wheel.

He'd raised his boy to be a soldier, and he was a damn good one. The thing that scared him, that kept him up at night, that kept him from looking at himself in the mirror, was that he knew—better than anyone—that soldiers die. And the way they lived, he would probably end up picking which field of battle took his son.

Swallowing the bile that rose at that thought, John slid the big truck into a parking spot next to the Impala, turned off the engine, and exited, slamming his door behind him. Without checking on Dean, he stomped up to the motel room door and pulled out the room key.

"No, no, I'm okay," Dean called out with mock-sincerity. "You go ahead, Dad. I got this."

John shot a look over his shoulder, his brows pulled together in a reflection of his dark mood, and watched as Dean slipped from the truck, shutting the door slowly behind him. His light-brown hair was plastered to his head, making his eyes seem impossibly large. Rain began washing the gore from his face as he made his way in a slow, sore gait toward the room.

"Get inside," John sighed.

"Why didn't I think of that?"

John gave his son a light shove on the shoulder as he crossed his path. "That rock didn't knock the smart ass outta you, that's for sure."

Dean groaned as he shrugged out of his wet jacket. "Gonna take a lot more than a monsoon to get rid of that, old man."

"Still young enough to teach you a thing or two," John grumbled automatically, shucking his own jacket and toeing off his boots. "Grab a shower, get warm, then I'll stitch you up."

"Yes, Sir," Dean agreed, squishing in sock-covered feet toward the bathroom, leaving wet footprints in his wake.

John watched until his son closed the bathroom door behind him, then stripped out of his soaked clothes. Draping them over the already-ruined wooden chairs, he pulled a cigarette-smoke scented pillowcase free and toweled his body with the thin material, then tugged on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt with three burn-holes in it. He fingered the holes idly, unable to recall exactly what had occurred to put them there.

He reached into his bag and pulled their med kit free, popping the lid open just as Dean stepped from the steam-filled bathroom, a white towel knotted at his waist. John started to glance up and order his son to get dressed and sit down when his eyes caught on a yellow, folded piece of notebook paper tucked into the lid of the kit.

"What's that?" Dean asked, his teeth chattering as he hurried toward his duffel to grab some warm clothes.

John just shook his head, pulling the paper free and unfolding it. He blinked.

It was a list.

In Sam's handwriting.

Like a kick to the ribs, John's breath vanished and he missed his youngest son with pain so bright he couldn't pull anything in to replace the air. He was so damn angry with the kid. Angry that their lives—the life he'd made for his boys—hadn't been what Sam wanted. That _they_ hadn't been what Sam wanted. He felt betrayed and forsaken and regretful and it all twisted inside of him until it coalesced into anger.

He saw the paper begin to shake, unable to connect that tremble with the sudden tremor in his hands.

"Dad?" Dean's voice was suddenly tight, his head barely poked through his T-shirt, blood from the cut on his head smearing the collar. "What is it?"

John couldn't answer. He dropped the paper and stepped back until the backs of his legs hit the edge of the bed. His stomach had turned to ice and was churning, cutting him up inside. With burning eyes, he watched as Dean picked up the paper and frowned at the contents.

"It's an inventory," he said. "Sutures, bandages, antibiotic cream, needles, tweezers, pain meds… he inventoried our supplies."

John forced himself to blink. In his mind, a voice was rolling like a record played too slow. Dean looked over at him.

"Did you know he did this?"

John wordlessly shook his head, eyes on his son.

Dean's mouth twitched into a half-smile and his eyes softened. With his feet bare, his jeans sitting low on his hips, his T-shirt slightly askew, and his short hair scuffed around his head in tufts, his son looked like a teenager, not a battle-hard warrior. The only thing marring the effect was a thin trickle of blood slowly crawling down the side of his face.

"He's always so paranoid about us getting hurt—"

"Was," John interrupted, the tremble in his voice shaming him.

"Huh?" Dean looked up at him, confused.

"_Was_ paranoid."

Dean drew his head back. "Dad, Sam didn't _die_. He's just at school."

John felt emotion seep from his eyes, felt it drain from his face, leaving curious pin-pricks of pain behind. He looked at his oldest and felt a chill settle in his bones as Dean reacted to his expression with something like fear.

"He left us, Dean," John said coldly. "_He_ made that choice."

"So what? He's dead to you now?" Dean lifted an eyebrow, flinching as the motion pulled at the cut on his head. "That's a little too Corleone, even for you."

John stepped forward swiftly, causing Dean to stumble back a step in surprise.

"I gave him a choice," John stated, pushing Dean down into the last available chair not covered with John's wet clothes. "And he left. Now, sit down."

John watched Dean's eyes dart away, his lips pulling in tight against his teeth. He reached for the antiseptic and suture supplies, hearing Dean mutter something in a low voice as he sank into a chair.

"What was that, son?" he all but growled.

Dean looked at him, rebellion turning his green eyes murky. "I said, it wasn't much of a choice."

John felt his heart slam, once, twice, hard against his ribs. Like a thunderstorm in his mind, he felt the same swift flash of terror that had swept over him when Dean had been washed away so quickly by the flood. If he lost Dean, he'd have nothing left. If he lost Dean, he'd lose himself.

As he stood looking down at Dean's angry eyes, he saw the very real possibility of losing his son not to a hunt, but to a different life. To a _normal_ life. Just as he'd lost Sam. He had to curb this. Now.

"We're done with this conversation," John said, his voice steady as he wet a cotton swab with antiseptic and dabbed it on the one-inch gash on Dean's forehead.

"Oh, so we're just… never going to talk about him again?" Dean said, hissing as the liquid burned into the exposed flesh.

"I'm not debating this with you, Dean." John threaded a needle and leaned forward. _Close ranks, Winchester! Do not let him call you out. _You_ are in charge here._

Dean caught his arm at the wrist, forcing him to look down. "You can turn your back on him if you want, Dad. But he's _my_ brother."

John didn't move, didn't flinch, allowed Dean to keep his hand on his wrist, and repeated in measured tones, "We're _done_ with this conversation, Dean. Is that clear?"

A muscle in Dean's jaw coiled and twisted like a live thing, but his eyes flattened, the fight gone out of him. "Yes, sir," he spat, dropping his hand and holding himself completely still.

John sewed his son's forehead with slow, careful strokes, trying to quell the jump in his gut each time the needle pierced Dean's skin.

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She had blue eyes. Husky-blue. The dark hair she absentmindedly twisted between two fingers as she talked to him set her eyes off with startling clarity.

Dean watched her talk, taking in the way her lips wrapped around the words, closing smoothly over white teeth and tugging slightly at the corners when she would infuse humor into her speech. He'd stopped listening about ten minutes ago, but liked the hum the rhythm of her voice played on his ears and the way she put her whole body into what she was saying.

Her eyes seemed to dance a bit and he took that as his cue to tip his chin up and offer her a half-grin in agreement. The bar had gradually filled with the late-evening drinkers, but the girl—Maria? Marta?—hadn't budged from his side since he'd dropped on the stool next to hers and offered to buy her a drink.

Two pints and three shots of Jack later, they'd moved from the bar stools to a booth in the back corner and she was tucked up against his side—his arm slung across the back of the faux-leather seat—telling him her life's story. The liquor sat warm in his belly, slipping through his system like soft gold, loosening his tight, sore muscles and making him twitch with a secret pleasure every time she shifted or tapped his thigh with darkly-painted nails.

Her eyes flicked to the butterfly-bandaged cut on his forehead and he tipped his head to the side to offer her a better look. The skin was bruised, but his Dad had pulled the stitches free just before they'd left Arizona. Since Sam had left, he and John hadn't stayed in one place more than three days—just long enough to find the hunt that brought them there, take care of the piece of shit, partially heal up from anything that needed healing, and then hit the road.

Dean was tired.

They were now in Washington state, but damned if he could remember the town. It was near the ocean, he knew that much. And he was in the same time-zone as his brother. In some weird way, it made him feel closer.

_Goddamn, I miss you Sammy._

"Hey, there," the girl said, pausing long enough in her monologue to actually see him. She traced a cool finger down the side of his face, stopping short of his lips. "You okay? You look… sad."

Banishing true emotion from his eyes was simple. He'd learned from a master architect how to swiftly construct interior walls of protection. Tipping the corner of his mouth up in a grin he knew would make her knees disappear, he caught her chin with his thumb and the bend of his forefinger.

"I'm good, sweetheart," he said softly. "How could I not be, with you here beside me?"

She blushed and he found he liked the color on her porcelain cheeks.

"I've been talking your ear off." She looked down at her hand resting on the top of his thigh. His belly caught fire in a nice, slow burn as she slid her fingers down to the inseam of his jeans, then inched her hand up toward his crotch. "Must be boring you to tears."

"Oh," Dean said, shifting slightly so that he wouldn't embarrass himself. "I wouldn't say that."

She looked over her shoulder, as if suddenly registering the gathering crowd. "You… wanna dance or something?"

The jukebox in the corner had been playing a mix of old-school rock and blue-grass country. At her words, he lifted his head and picked up Bob Seger's _Night Moves_.

"Not much of a dancer," he said, watching the eclectic mix of people bouncing off of each other on the dance floor.

"I could," she swallowed, turning to face him, her striking blue eyes large in the dimly-lit corner. "I could teach you," she finished, catching her bottom lip in her teeth, her eyes on his mouth.

He wanted to inhale her. Pull her in, kiss her breathless, have her limp and willing and ready to let him bury himself inside of her where, for a few minutes of numb-headed bliss, he could forget about Sam and Dad and hunting and evil and pain. He could just be a guy fucking a girl and having a good time.

But this one, he knew, was going to take timing.

When Seger faded and Dean heard the first chords of Bad Company's little played _Don't Let Me Down_, he let his mouth relax into a full smile. Bad Company had always been his pinch-hitter in these situations.

"All right, sweetheart," he said, liking the way she seemed to melt into his smile. "Show me what you got."

She slipped from the booth, catching his hand in hers and tugging him along behind her. He followed her lead to the edge of the small, sawdust-covered dance floor, then watched her eyes widen in delighted surprise when he rested his hand on the small of her back, pulling her up close to him, and tucked her other hand up against his chest, wrapping his fingers around hers.

As music filled the space around them, erasing the other people in the bar, he narrowed his focus to the girl in his arms, curled his shoulders in, dropped his chin, and surrounded her. She melded her body to his, her mouth at his neck, her lips slightly parted so that he could feel the warm exhale of air on his throat.

He liked that he didn't know her name. He liked that he didn't know if she was older or younger than him. He liked that she fit against him and that her skin warmed at his touch when he skipped his fingers along her bare arms. He liked that she hadn't asked about his bruises or what he did for a living. He liked that he hadn't listened to a word she'd said.

She could be anyone. He could be no one. And it all fit in his mind as something he could use in the moment and guiltlessly release when they were done. And it didn't matter that Sam hadn't called him back. Or at all. And it didn't matter that he'd found his father passed out twice in the last three weeks. And it didn't matter that they hadn't been able to stop moving. That his _dad_ hadn't been able to stop moving.

For this moment, he wasn't a hunter or a fighter. He didn't know what lurked in the dark. He wasn't vigilant in his wariness or suspicious of each encounter. He was just a guy on a dance floor with a girl in his arms.

Sometimes the night was the toughest part of the day. He'd learned young that the arms of a willing woman were the perfect hiding place when he had no choices left. As he swayed with her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scuffing the soles of his boots in a small, slow circle, he pulled in her scent: tangy, but sweet.

The song reached its end and the first chords of AC/DC's _Shook Me All Night Long_ had the bar whooping with toasts and an exchange of dancers. Dean stood still, the blue-eyed girl held gently in his arms, and waited, breath held.

"You wanna get out of here?" she whispered.

His smile was immediate and sunny. He turned the wattage up a notch when he saw her eyes dilate in reaction. "Absolutely." He let the word roll out over his teeth and slip inside her, slowly.

They paused at the back table to grab their jackets—autumn in the Pacific Northwest was somewhat unforgiving—and Dean dropped some money on the table to cover their tab. He held her hand loosely in his as he led her to the Impala, parked in the back of the lot under cover of darkness for ease of escape, if necessary.

He was busy calculating exactly how long his dad might be away from their room as he unlocked the passenger door for her. Before he could reach a conclusion, however, the girl gripped him by the shoulders and pushed, hard, unbalancing him and sending him sprawling across the bench seat.

His first instinctive thought was _succubus_, until the girl breathlessly laughed and climbed in after him.

"I've always wanted to see if I could pull off the rough stuff," she said.

Dean swallowed his knee-jerk reaction, silently cursing the life that had him seeing evil in the innocent. He pulled his legs in, tipping her forward onto his chest with the motion and pulled the door closed with the toe of his boot, trapping their passion-heated air in the confines of the car.

"You don't want the rough stuff," he said.

"Oh, I don't?" she replied, coyly.

Dean shook his head, wrapping his arms around her slim body and turning her, grinning around the quick gasp she let out in surprise.

"No," he asserted, his mouth less than an inch from hers, "you don't."

"What do I want, then?" she asked, and he smelled the whiskey on her breath, felt her press up against him in an instinctive, primal arch.

Dean licked his lips, letting his grin turn her soft and pliant in his grasp, and then took her mouth with his. He was slow at first, gentle in his touch, but at her whimper pressed harder, dove deeper, and let himself taste her. She clutched at his shoulders, wrapping a leg around his, tightening her muscles to pull him closer.

He slipped a hand up along her ribs, lightly touching her breast until she moved a hand from his shoulders to his hair and tugged in a wordless bid for action. He'd just begun to pull her shirt loose from her jeans when his phone rang. He jerked back, surprised.

"Son of a…"

"Wh-what's that?" she gasped, her lips swollen from his kisses.

"My damn phone," he grumbled, digging it out of his jacket pocket.

"Don't—" she started to plead, but he was already flipping it open, having seen the name _Dad_ highlighted in the window on the front of his phone.

"Yeah?" he said, his voice flat.

"_Dean? Get back here,"_ John snapped. _"Talked to a source. Found out what's killing those kids._"

"You need me _right now_?"

"_Yes, _right now_." _John's voice was clipped and in no mood to negotiate. _"We've got work to do."_

Dean bit back a sigh. "Gimme twenty."

"_You got ten_," John replied, waiting on Dean's reply of, "Yes, Sir," before cutting off their connection.

The blue-eyed girl was still beneath him, sensing, it seemed, that the heat had been lost from their stolen moment.

"You gotta go?"

Dean closed his phone, tucking it back into his jacket pocket, and nodded.

"Work?" She guessed.

Sighing, Dean rolled off of her, balanced on the edge of the seat, allowing her to pull her legs close in a more modest position. "More like… family business."

She nodded. "You coming by later?" she asked hopefully.

Dean rolled his bottom lip against his teeth. "Maybe. You gonna be around?"

Her lips were losing their puffy, just-been-kissed appearance and looked thinner somehow when she smiled. "Maybe."

Dean looked at her, full-on, capturing those wolf-like eyes with his. Reaching out impulsively, he cupped the back of her neck and tugged her mouth to his, closing his eyes as he let himself taste once more. Mouth still close to hers he relaxed his grip, saying, "Thanks for the dance."

"Uh…" she breathed out shakily. "You're… welcome."

Dropping his hand, he waited until she slid from the car through the driver's side door, straightened her clothes, shook out her tangled hair, and walked alone back to the bar. He kept his eyes on her until she went through the entrance unharmed, then fired up the Impala.

"Whatever you've got planned, Dad," he muttered, twisting the wheel in a tight, tire-squealing arc, "there'd better be time for a damn cold shower."

www

Dean slammed through the door, pinned an expressively irritated look on his father as he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on a vacant chair, then made a bee-line to the bathroom. John kept his mouth closed, but couldn't hide his smirk of humor when he heard the shower water turn on and the stream of colorful swear words that bounced around the tiled walls.

Brinnon was a small coastal town. Their usual motels weren't available to them with this hunt, and John had to make an exception when he'd found them a home base. The room he'd secured for them had felt a bit extravagant with separate bedrooms and bathrooms connected by a common living space with a small kitchenette. They hadn't had separate rooms since the little house he'd been renting when Sam had decided to leave. He had to admit, though, that getting some space was probably for the best; they'd been living practically on top of each other for nearly a month now.

He'd put the room on a little-used credit card under the name of Elroy MacGillicuddy—a name Dean had selected and submitted before John was able to clip the application—knowing the limit was low, but anticipating they'd be moving on inside of the week. It was one of his few fake cards that shared a name of fake insurance and he didn't like to use it too often in case those that paid attention to such things were able to find a trail of fraud. After eighteen years living under the radar, he'd picked up a few habits that had kept him from jail and his sons away from Social Services.

Dean's leather jacket—John's old coat—held the smell of whiskey and cigarettes and John knew his son had been desperately searching for some downtime when he'd called him back. Dean needed something to pull his mind from the hunt. Something to ground him, remind him why they lived the way they did.

Especially now. Now that Sam wasn't here. Now that Dean's purpose—the purpose John had instilled in him—was gone.

Logic bade John do the same, but the need to forget, the drive to keep regret at bay, pushed him to keep moving. And though he'd never confess as much to Dean, he understood Sam's need for normal all-too well. He'd had his own version of normal now and then when he'd left the boys for a job. There were times when he'd just let himself pretend that he'd saved the day, let her thank him in that way unique to women, and then use her to fill himself back up.

But he always came back. He never left his boys for long.

While Dean…showered…John continued to fit iron slugs into the brass jackets of the rifle bullets. Shotguns weren't going to work for this hunt, and the handgun bullets were too small for the slugs. Iron was the main repellent and he knew that if either he or Dean got too close to this mother, they'd be broken like a pretzel.

Dean finally re-emerged, dressed, his hair glistening wet and spiked as he rubbed a small towel over his head.

"Okay," Dean growled, irritably. "What's so damned important?"

John's head snapped up. "Sorry if your date got interrupted," his voice rich with sarcasm, "but in case you forgot, we have a job to do."

John knew Dean was tired, frustrated... hurting. They both were. But when had their timing ever been good?

"How _could_ I forget, Dad?" Dean yelled, his voice angry. He threw the wet towel into the corner with enough force that it hit the wall with a _splat_. "You never let me!"

"Hey!" John shot back. "I don't like your tone. You better re-think it damn quick."

"Dad, since Sam left, all we've done is hunt. Day after fuckin' day!"

John stood, heart pounding in a dizzying combination of fear and anger. "You don't like it?" He paused for a heartbeat. "Then leave."

"What?" Dean blinked, blindsided by the word, settling his stance in what appeared to be an unconscious balance for understanding. "I'm not leaving," he said, his voice hushed with confusion.

John tossed a rifle bullet onto the table next to a stack of weapons. "You better be sure."

Dean's lips tightened. "I haven't quit you yet."

"No," John bobbed his head, conceding that point. "But frankly, I'm up to here with you pining for your brother all the time. Get over it."

"Oh, and you're not pining for your _son?" _Dean challenged, his eyes snapping.

John's gut twisted; Dean had his mother's eyes. Hers would look just like that moments before she let fly. And his girl was a scrapper. He didn't know where she'd learned it, but Mary could fight and he learned to respect her strength, her logic, and her passion.

"You gonna stand there and tell me that this doesn't feel _wrong_ to you?" Dean waved his hand in the air between them. "We're a _family_, Dad. Going full-bore like we have been… without Sam… it's…"

John's fist curled instinctively, but he forced himself to stand still when he saw Dean's shoulders tighten in reaction. He'd never hit his sons—not once—and he was damn-sure not about to start now. Forcing himself to take a breath, he turned and reached for the half-empty bottle of Jim Beam that he'd set on the dresser. The whiskey felt warm and familiar in his belly and he took another sip before setting down the bottle and facing Dean once more.

To his surprise, Dean had turned away and was gripping the back of the chair closest to the weapon-laden table, his knuckles white, his head down.

"Why can't you just admit that you—"

"That what? I was wrong? That what you want me to say?" John roared, pulling Dean's surprised gaze to him as he exploded. "God_dammit_, Dean, I did the best I could. I tried to protect him from this as long as possible. But you _know_ why he had to be a part of it. _He_ knows. And he turned his back on us. I told him to choose, and _he_ chose to leave!"

Dean blinked at him as John dragged in a rough breath, working to steady his shaking hands.

"I was just gonna say," Dean said softly, "why can't you admit that you miss him?"

John closed his eyes, then ran a hand down his face, pulling gently on his beard. He opened his eyes and looked at Dean silently.

"But you just can't do that, can you?" Dean said, bitterness lacing his words with sarcasm. "You do that, and he wins. This is all just some big soldier-game to you, isn't it? You're the general, we're your soldiers, and Sam went AWOL. So screw him."

Feeling the burn of tears spark up at his son's tone, John looked away, picking up the Jim Beam and dropping down in an empty chair facing the weapons. "Yeah," he said dully, grasping any reason to stop fighting. Didn't matter if it was true or not. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

Dean _thunked_ the chair he'd been gripping against the table and turned away. After a moment, his back still facing his father, he said, "So what about me, then?"

"Well, that depends on you, Son."

"Depends on me, how?"

"You have the same choice," John said, knowing he was lying, knowing his words were hollow even as he said them. "You in or out, here? 'Cause me? I got a job to do."

He spoke toward the table, unwilling to even catch Dean's tight shoulders in his periphery, hating himself more with every word. "I'm gonna find out what killed your mother and I'm going to make that sonuvabitch suffer. And in the meantime, I'm taking out as many of these evil bastards as I can. You want to be a part of that, you throw it in with me now."

Dean's shoulders drew tight as his eyes filled.

"You want out?" John continued, his stomach on fire. "Want a _normal_ life? Want to be _safe_? Empty out the Impala's trunk and get moving."

The room was silent for a moment and John felt his son's heartbeat. Felt the truth resting between them like a third party in the room. The truth screaming at him that Dean had never had a choice. From the moment he'd placed baby Sam in Dean's arms and ordered him out of their burning house, his eldest son's fate had been set. And the kid had spent the last eighteen years of his life fighting the good fight, protecting his brother, taking care of his father—doing the job.

It was one thing, John knew, to realize this truth, quite another to understand it, and almost impossible to outwardly appreciate it. He knew he'd told Dean that he'd done a good job. He knew he'd thanked him a time or two. When he'd been very young, John had told his son that he loved him. But he'd never once told Dean how proud he was. How much he respected this kid for the man he'd become—for being a better man than he'd ever be.

As Dean turned to face him, his eyes large and wet, his face drawn, his lips tight, John knew he was sealing his son's fate for life in this moment.

"So, uh," Dean said, clearing his throat and blinking back emotion that had risen to the surface, unbidden. "What's this kid-killing thing called?"

John mentally closed his eyes and took a breath, relief he would never show pouring through him, thankful that they were back on even ground, that they could focus on the job, and not on what was tearing them both up inside. He covered the moment by taking another sip from the bottle before twisting on the cap and setting it aside.

"It's called a Kappa," John said. He picked up a throwing knife lying on the table along with an oilstone and slid the blade along the stone's surface just to have something to do with his hands.

"Sounds like a sorority," Dean said, and with his quip, John felt the tension not so much leave the air as feeling it put away, even if just temporarily. Dean reached out and hefted John's Bowie, balancing the blade on his finger tip.

John lifted an eyebrow, tossing a side-long glance at Dean. "It's a Japanese water spirit."

"Japanese?" Dean asked, his eyebrows up. "Kinda geographically confused, isn't it?"

John shrugged, sliding the iron bullets into the breechblock of one of the two rifles stacked on the table. "Washington's on the Pacific coast. Not like spirits are bound by borders."

"Think someone summoned it?"

John shrugged. "Maybe. Could be it hitched a ride with a fishing trolley. I don't give a damn. All I know is, it's here, and it's killed four kids already."

"So," Dean set the Bowie down. "How does it kill?"

"Drowns its victims."

"Then what?" Dean frowned. "Eats them?"

John shook his head, setting down one rifle and picking up the other. "Not entirely. Mostly drains their blood and goes after the, uh…"

Dean looked at him. "What? Hearts?"

"Soft tissues," John said, curling his lip up in distaste as he thought of the coroner's report he'd reviewed of the latest victim. The child's eyes had been missing, as if sucked clean from his skull.

Dean grimaced. "Well that's… gross. How do we kill it?"

"There's a… bone-like growth filled with water on its head. When the basin is dry, it dies. So, we keep it on land long enough so that it suffocates on air."

Dean frowned. "That sounds too easy."

John picked up his journal and opened it to his latest entry. "Well, Joshua—"

"Who?"

John looked at his son. "Friend of mine."

"Friend?" Dean formed the word as if he didn't understand the meaning.

"_Hunter_ friend," John clarified. "He did some digging and said these bastards are known for their bone-breaking skill."

"Oh, great," Dean rolled his eyes. "We're going up against some kung-fu water spirit that we have to trap on land. This is going to be super fun."

"It has an aversion to iron," John continued, reading his notes. "And, it uh…"

"What? Likes moonlit walks? Is allergic to shellfish? What?"

John clapped the journal closed, tossing his son a deadpan glance. "It looks like a man-sized, upright turtle."

Dean blinked at him. "We're going after a Japanese Mutant Ninja Turtle?"

John finished loading the second rifle, set it down, and then twisted off the cap from the whiskey. "Basically, yeah."

"So where's this Joshua dude?" Dean asked. "Or, hell, any other hunters for that matter? Sounds like more than a two-man job, Dad."

John just shook his head. When he'd first found out about hunters—how they lived, how they killed, how they died—he promised himself that with the exception of a few he was going to keep his sons away from their kind. Hunters by and large were a dangerous, desperate lot. They'd seen the darkness in the world and it had changed them. It turned them. They became part of the shadows, willing to do whatever they deemed necessary to get the job done.

He'd seen soldiers like that in Vietnam. Those that had been in country too long, who had lost their compass and had turned to the gray of the world to fight the evils they saw. In their effort to win, they'd made compromises they never thought they'd make, and lost pieces of themselves along the way. John was not about to let that happen to Dean and Sam. Not while he was around.

His boys were soldiers, but they were good men. They would stand in the light and judge the dark. There would be no gray area. No modification. Evil was evil, end of story. Bobby Singer, Jim Murphy, and Caleb were the extent of his allowances for the boys' network. Everyone else he kept at bay.

"We don't need any other hunters," John answered.

Dean sighed. "We're tired, Dad," he said softly.

The way his boy spoke the confession—including John in the configuration—caught him. John looked over, quiet, waiting.

"We are," Dean continued. "We haven't stopped, not for longer than a day. I'm hurting, I _know_ you're hurting. And—"

John watched him swallow Sam's name.

"I just think we could use some back-up. We've gotten used to fighting as three."

"I used to fight as one," John reminded him.

"I've been hunting with you since I was twelve, Dad."

"Fourteen," John corrected.

Dean shook his head. "That spirit back in Knoxville? In the old hotel?" He reminded his dad.

"You were twelve?"

Dean nodded.

"Ten years, huh?" John tilted his head, looking at his son with appreciation. "Well, then, you know we got this."

Dean licked his lips, fingering the Bowie once more. "You got all the research on it? I mean, are you full-on ready?"

"Your brother isn't the only one who can work a laptop, Dean," John scoffed.

"Yeah, I know," Dean said, adding somewhat reluctantly, "but he also took it with him."

John arched an eyebrow. "There's a library three blocks from that bar you went to tonight."

Dean dropped his shoulders, looking sheepish. "Oh."

John clapped the tips of his fingers on the table, leaning forward. "We're gonna be okay, Dean. We just keep doing what we do—saving people. Hunting things. We have ourselves a family business."

"Yeah, I know," Dean nodded. "You taking the Bowie?"

John's lips quirked. "Tell you what. You carry it for this hunt."

"Yeah?" Dean flipped the blade in his hand.

John smiled at the eagerness in his son's voice. "Yeah. Now, get geared up. I have a plan, but we have to get some things first."

"Yes, Sir."

www

"_Lonely is the night when you find yourself alone. Your demons come to light and your mind is not your own…"_

Dean in the driver's seat of a darkened Impala, the keys turned to the first catch, triggering the battery and allowing him to sink into the guitar riffs, fingers tapping out the beat on the inside curve of the steering wheel.

"_Lonely is the night when there's no one left to call. You feel the time is right, the writin's on the wall…"_

He peered through the window, waiting for his father to emerge from the motel manager's office, wondering why they were taking one car—_his_ car, no less—instead of the dual truck/car combination that had been serving them rather well over the last few years. John had tucked two Winchester 9422 rifles, loaded with the iron-tipped bullets Dean had seen, salt, and rope into the Impala's trunk on top of the meager supplies he had begun to store up on his own.

Telling Dean to pull the Impala into the shadow of a large birch tree, hiding it from the powerful security lights, John had slipped through the night and into a side door of the manager's office.

"What are you _doing_, Dad?" Dean muttered, narrowing his eyes and trying to see anything moving in the murk of darkness. Mid-October wind had turned the night from chilly to frigid between the time he'd left the bar and the lean hours of the morning.

When Dean saw his Dad emerge from the manager's office, he twisted the keys, starting up the Chevy with a low rumble. Then he saw the short figure jogging behind John, a dark hoodie covering its head.

"What the hell?" Dean muttered, reaching for his door handle just as John yanked open the rear passenger door.

A kid of about nine, with large, dark eyes, sleepy-looking, but excited about whatever adventure he believed himself to be on, stared back at him.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Dean replied, baffled, then looked over as his father slipped into the passenger seat.

"All right," John said, slightly winded from the quick jog and tension. "Head to the coordinates I gave you."

"Uhh… what's with the kid?" Dean jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the back seat.

John didn't look at him, choosing instead to stare resolutely through the front window, rubbing his hands together to create friction-induced warmth. "I told you. I had to get a few things."

"I'm here to help, "the boy interjected.

Dean shot him a look, then forced himself to smile. "Thanks, kid. Uh, you think you can hang out here for a sec?"

"You gotta talk to the Sergeant?" the kid replied.

Dean lifted an eyebrow, sliding his eyes back to his father's profile. "Yeah," he said tightly. "I gotta talk to the _Sergeant_."

John looked at him then, the sarcasm in Dean's voice tripping a land mine of pride. "We got a job to do, Dean."

"Can I talk to you outside real quick?" Dean opened his door.

"No time." John shook his head.

Dean stepped out, then ducked his head into the interior of the car, missing its warmth almost immediately. "_Make_ time," he said, slamming his door. He moved around to the hood of the car and rested his pockets just above the grill, waiting for his father.

After a few heartbeats, he heard the passenger door close and John made his way to the front of the car, facing Dean rather than sitting next to him.

"Well?" John flicked his fingers in the air between them. "You got something to say? Say it."

"We're not taking the kid," Dean declared.

"You want to trap this bastard? We need bait."

Dean jabbed his chin forward, dropping his voice, though he knew the kid couldn't hear them over the noise of the radio. "We'll find another way."

"There _is_ no other way," John said, his whisper so sharp Dean felt it cut the air. "The Kappa feeds on children. You want to wait until it kills another kid? Or do you want to control the situation."

"This is _messed up_, Dad." Dean shook his head. "How the hell did you get him to come with you?"

"He's the manager's kid. Talked to him earlier today; he was outside playing war with his G.I. Joes. Kid likes to play soldier, so… I gave him a mission."

Dean gaped at him, unsure if he should be awed or horrified by his father's tactics. "I'm not letting you take him."

John narrowed his eyes. "This isn't the first time we've used… live bait."

Dean looked away briefly, remembering the night Sam sat, alone, in a circle of rock salt while he and John flanked him, waiting. He'd never been so afraid, so sick, and so determined to _not miss_. "That was different."

"How, exactly?" John challenged.

Dean narrowed his eyes, jabbing a finger in his father's direction. "Sam knew the danger. He knew what was going on."

"And that made it better?" John asked.

Dean felt his brows meet across the bridge of his nose. "You trying to talk me into this or out of it, Dad?"

"I'm trying to get your ass back in the car so we can go kill this mother and get some sleep." John's shoulders hunched close as he inched forward, his face close to Dean's, his breath hot and slightly whiskey-tinged on Dean's cheeks. "Believe me, boy, if there was another way—"

"There is," Dean said, light dawning like a super nova in the back of his mind.

"What?"

"There is." He straightened away from the Impala, causing John to back up a step. "Use me."

John instantly started to shake his head and Dean interrupted his denial. "You said it feeds on children."

"You may act like a teenager in heat, Dean, but you're not—"

"Yeah," Dean interrupted again. "_I am_. I'm _your_ child."

John blinked and Dean heard him swallow. They stood, boots barely inches apart, eyes on each other's face, challenging, waiting, thinking. Dean felt his back tighten, his heart slamming against his ribs, as he tried to determine if his father would accept his proposed solution.

"It could work," John conceded.

Dean felt dizzy from relief. "I'll take him back."

"Dean—"

"I won't be long." Dean was already loping around to the passenger side of the car, his heart climbing his throat and beating a rhythm behind his eyes. He opened the door and motioned for the kid to slide out.

"We still going on the mission?" the kid asked, a yawn punctuating the end of his sentence.

"Mission's been aborted, kid," Dean shook his head.

"But I was gonna help," the kid said, allowing himself to be steered by the shoulder back across the lot and toward the side door.

Dean tried the handle, cursing under his breath when he found it locked.

"Key's under the mat," the kid said.

_Of course it is_, Dean thought, bending and kicking the silver object loose. If people knew half the ways that criminals got to them, they'd dead-bolt their doors thrice over. He unlocked the door, glanced over his shoulder, then put a hand on the kid's shoulder.

"You did good, kid. You were ready when we needed you. The Sergeant told you how important it was to keep quiet, yeah?"

"National security," the kid yawned.

"Exactly," Dean nodded. "Get back in there and go to bed. Don't want your Dad worrying about you." He gave the kid a gentle shove through the door, closing it behind him.

_National security_, he scoffed inwardly. _Dad, you scare me sometimes, man_.

He made it back to the car, noting that John was now in the driver's seat of _his_ car, and slid inside.

"Happy?" John grumbled, pulling away from the lot.

"Hell, yeah," Dean replied. "I'm fuckin' ecstatic that I get to be turtle bait." _But at least some random kid isn't going to have his world rocked by seeing that what's really out there in the dark wouldn't need a key to get to him._

"Everybody grows up sometime, Dean," John said softly, as if reading his mind.

"Yeah, well," Dean looked through the passenger window as they headed to the shoreline. "Doesn't have to be like that," he muttered softly to himself.

www

He didn't like this. Not at all. Risking Sam while there had been two to cover him was one thing. Risking Dean with no back up…

"This isn't a bad plan, Dad."

"It's not a good one, either."

Dean sheathed the Bowie and tugged his jacket down over it. "It's okay to admit I'm good at this, y'know," he grinned cheekily at his father.

John narrowed his eyes, his lips pursing. "That'll be the day."

He hefted one of the Winchesters from the trunk, eyeing the other, trying to work out a way to arm Dean with more than a blade.

"Hold this," he said, handing the rifle to his son.

"Didn't bring my duster to this shoot-out," Dean said.

John began to eject bullets from the spare rifle, raising an eyebrow in Dean's direction. "You watch too much TV, kid."

"You can learn a lot from TV," Dean argued, his eyes on his father.

"Such as?" John prompted, setting the empty rifle back in the trunk and reaching to take the loaded weapon back from Dean, catching his son's grin as he did so.

"Well, _you_ sure as hell didn't teach me about the birds and the bees," Dean smirked.

John raised his free hand in surrender, making a face. "I get it, I get it."

The bodies of two victims had been found downriver, several miles apart. The third victim had been one mile north of the second, and the fourth, a half-mile north of the third. It was closing the gap, feeding more quickly, getting reckless.

"My money is still on summoning," Dean commented as they made their way to the cluster of trees near the coordinates John surmised the Kappa would be lurking next. "It's the only thing that makes sense. I mean, why else would it start… feeding so close together unless someone was making it?"

"So, what, these kids pissed someone off? That it?" John glanced at Dean, watching him shrug.

"It's just a theory," Dean replied.

John had to nod. "Not a bad theory," he conceded. "I've been trying to figure out how the hell this thing got four kids away from their homes and parents in order to kill them in the middle of the night."

Dean tossed his father a quick glance. "You managed it easily enough," he said.

John opened his mouth, but closed it without replying as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. They were near the shoreline. The rocky terrain gave way to pea-sized gravel and sand, branches strewn across tufts of grass turned silver in the waning moonlight. The night was fading, growing closer to dawn. When the bodies of the children had been found by morning joggers or a boat patrol, time of death had been estimated as six to eight hours prior.

_Right about… now_, John thought, nodding at Dean as his son stepped away and began his slow trek down the shoreline, hedging carefully away from the repetitive rush of the lapping tide. According to Joshua—and some swift research on John's part—the Kappa emerge from the water long enough to snatch their prey, then pull them back to the tide and kill them. The bodies were then washed up on the shore.

He shivered, partly from the adrenaline rush of anticipation, partly from the rapidly dropping temperatures. He watched Dean move further from him, and gripping the rifle, his shoulder pressed up against a tree, wondering if they'd been wrong about the night… about the tactics… about the location.

About the bait.

_This isn't going to work_, he thought, stepping from the shadow of the tree into the silver of the moonlight, flattening his lips and whistling once to grab Dean's attention. Dean turned, seeing him, and started to head back when the impossible emerged from the black water to his son's right.

It was only then that John realized his mistake. The Kappa hadn't seen Dean until John emerged. It hadn't recognized Dean as a child until the father became visible.

"Oh shit," John breathed. "Dean!"

Dean had stumbled backwards several steps in surprise when the creature seemed to simply rise from the murk at the water's edge, but regained his footing and opened his stance to fight.

"Get the hell out of there, boy!" John yelled, running forward, raising the rifle to his shoulder and firing in one motion.

The Kappa didn't divert its attention from its prey. The description Joshua had offered didn't do the creature justice. John had seen ugliness, impossible creatures, fiction-made-real, but nothing prepared him for this. The creature was a bi-ped, its dark, scale-covered arms reaching for Dean with claws extending like talons. On its head was what looked to be an inverted shell-like basin made of bone and filled with water. Its mouth was a wide slash in a scaled-covered face and John could see yellowish eyes with goat-like horizontal slits glowing where the pupils should be.

"Son of a…" he breathed, startled by his son's echoed, "…bitch!"

Dean had the Bowie out and was holding the Kappa at bay—barely. John shook himself, raising the rifle once more, taking aim and firing. This bullet found a mark and the creature flinched, a howl echoing off of the water and causing Dean to curl in, covering his ears.

"Dean!" John barked again. "Run!"

But Dean stubbornly held ground and John hurried forward once more, kneeling down and firing just as the Kappa lunged. This bullet went wide and John heard his son cry out in a quick bleat of surprised pain before a flurry of curses chased the heels of the sound.

"You fucking lizard," Dean growled, his voice seeming to roll up from his gut, "I'm gonna turn you into boots!"

John saw him slash at the creature's jugular—or where a jugular should be—and raised his rifle once more just as the Kappa swiped at Dean, its arm a blur, and cracked across Dean's side. Dean slammed, hard, to the ground, sound evaporating as John heard quick punches of air escaping.

John fired, cocked the repeater and fired again, emptying the iron into the creature as it thrashed backwards, away from Dean, toward the water.

"Goddammit," John cursed, digging into his pockets for the spare bullets as he ran. He needed the bastard falling the other way—toward land. He splashed through the surf as he reloaded on the move, casting a glance at his son, lying still on the wet sand, his body shivering from cold and pain.

"Dean?"

Dean lifted a hand, motioning, but didn't respond. As John splashed past, he could hear the ragged rasp of his son's breathing and guessed he'd either had the wind knocked out of him, or had broken some ribs. The Kappa was stumbling back to the ocean when John reached it and instinctively grabbed the creature's wet, scale-covered arm.

The Kappa roared.

There was no other category for John to place the sound. It was a lion's roar, ferocious and frightening. John flung himself at the horrific, nightmarish body, shoving it with force toward land, rolling with it, working to wrestle it into submission. With surprise, he felt himself flung aside as the creature rose to its feet. Blinking up from the ground, John focused on the dark shape of the creature as the barest hint of dawn lit the sky behind him.

"Dad!" Dean yelped, and John reacted, rolling to the side as the Kappa's foot came down in what would have been a bone-crunching blow.

He bounced to his feet. "Dean! The rifle!"

The iron didn't seem to be slowing it down as much as John had hoped, but it was still something to fight back with. He backed away from the creature, catching Dean's figure out of the corner of his eyes as he crawled through the edge of water toward the discarded rifle. The Kappa turned to Dean. John drew back a fist, ready to send a powerhouse blow to the creature's neck.

The Kappa was faster. Stronger. Deadlier.

The blow from the creature's foot hit John's tibia with a sickening crunch. He was falling before he felt it shatter, before he felt it break through the flesh of his shin, tearing his jeans and spilling his blood. He was on the ground before the pain hit him, sweeping over him like a white-hot wave, rolling him in an embrace of fire, reaching down his throat and dragging a scream of pain from his belly.

He saw nothing but white, the edges of his blinded vision crinkling in like burning paper and fading to black.

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"DAD!" Dean screamed, feeling the sound scrape the inside of his lungs raw.

His side was weeping from pain, the blow of the Kappa effectively breaking at least two of his ribs. He lifted the Winchester rifle and fired two shots before John had finished screaming. The Kappa jerked with both blows, but continued to come at him. Dean cocked the gun, but the Kappa reached out and tossed the weapon away, bending the barrel as it did so. Dean lunged at it, pain and fear turning his attack desperate.

The Kappa simply wrapped him in a suffocating embrace and allowed itself to fall, dropping them both into the pull of the tide, letting the strength of the water roll them under. Dean grabbed a breath and closed his eyes, knowing the combination of salt water and sand would render them useless in seconds. He pushed against the slick, water-tight skin of the creature, his struggles weakening as pain and lack of oxygen began to win.

As he fought, his flailing fingers found the large orbs that gave the creature sight. In a last-ditch effort, Dean dug his thumbs into the Kappa's devilish eyes, pressing until he felt the creature's grip loosen. He kicked free, gaining the surface and gagging on water. With weak strokes he swam the short way to the shore, his body trembling, his side almost numb from pain and cold.

He fell to his knees just shy of being free of the water, unable to move, for a moment needing simply to breathe.

The ocean exploded behind him and Dean instinctively ducked, rolling to his back and crab-crawling away as the Kappa seemed to fly at him, enraged. Dean couldn't move fast enough. It was moving like a blur, claws extended, hand reaching—and then it stopped.

Dean blinked, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He saw the creature struggle, trying to lift its basin-like head, water sloshing free. Pinning its outstretched hand to the compact earth was John's six-inch Bowie knife. Dean looked with shock from the buried blade to the pale, trembling hand that slowly released the hilt.

John looked at him, face white as a sheet, eyes pain-filled. "You… c-call this a… good plan?"

"Jesus Christ, Dad," Dean breathed.

The Kappa tried to lift its head once more, but being pinned face-down seemed to be as effective in trapping it as tipping an actual turtle onto its back. Dean swallowed, gathering his legs beneath him, and reached out a hand to the basin on top of the creature's head. He pressed, tipping the head so that more water sloshed out.

The Kappa thrashed violently at first, but as the basin emptied, its struggles lessened and in moments it was still. Dawn bruised the eastern horizon, tipping the sky above the ocean into an ink-like blackness. For one heartbeat, everything on the beach was still, then a soft blue wrapped its arms around the edges of the world and when Dean looked at the Kappa, it had curled and shriveled into a hideous, alien-like corpse.

"B-burn the bastard," John choked out.

"Need to get you some help, Dad," Dean argued.

"Do it," John ordered.

Dean pushed himself to his feet, tapping his wet pockets uselessly. He turned to his father and reached for the inside pocket of John's coat when he saw the mangled mess that was John's left leg.

"Oh, fuck me," Dean breathed. "Dad—"

"Hurry… hurry up, Son," John choked out. "Can't…"

With that, John's eyes fluttered, the brown rolling back in his head, and Dean saw him sag as he gave in to the pain.

"Dammit!" Dean dug John's silver Zippo from one pocket and a small, palm-sized can of lighter fluid from another. He crawled painfully back to the husk of Kappa and squirted the lighter fluid on the remains, pulling the knife free before flicking the lighter and touching the flame to the fluid.

A horrid, dead-fish smell permeated the air around them and Dean tucked his nose into the crook of his wet elbow before making his way back to his dad. The sight of John's mangled leg made him want to gag once more, but he forced himself to clear his head, to remember his training, to _think_.

"Splint? Right… right, splint," he said to himself, working to keep his teeth from chattering, forcing himself to breathe regularly as each hitch, each gasp drew fire across his side. He forced himself out of his wet jacket, easing John's leg up and wrapping the arms of the jacket around the base of his knee, above the break.

Grabbing two sticks of roughly the same size from the scattered collection on the beachhead, he slipped them beneath the jacket tourniquet, shrugged out of his wet flannel shirt and used a combination of it and the jacket to encase the wounded leg. He looked up the path they'd walked down earlier.

He couldn't drag John up there; the damage to his leg was too severe. The only thing left was to carry him. The thought twisted Dean's stomach, knowing how it was going to jar his broken ribs. Closing his eyes, he breathed in slowly, then exhaled, steeling himself for the inevitable.

"Dean…" John's voice startled him.

"Dad?"

"Lift me up, Son," John slurred, his eyes barely open. "Can't… carry me…"

"You're not walking out of here," Dean shook his head, pressing John's shoulder down as his father started to roll to his side.

"Dean," John looked up at him, his mouth hidden by beard, his eyes hollowed-out by pain. "Together."

Dean felt his jaw tremble, wishing with every part of him that his brother was there. That Sam was beside him. Keeping Sam calm and focused had always kept _him_ calm and focused. And he could really use the kid's strength right about now.

"On three," Dean nodded. "One… two… _three_."

He got John to a seated position before they both had to stop to breathe. Another three count and Dean was bent at the waist, John near-collapse across his back. With a painful shift, he got his arms around John, securing John's arm over his shoulder. They began to move, every few feet stopping to breathe, John unable to keep from crying out as weight was inadvertently shifted to his left leg.

It was arduous, it was impossibly long, and just when Dean decided that dying in the woods could be an acceptable way to go out, he saw the Impala.

"Hang in there, Dad," he panted. "I see her… just a bit further, okay?"

John didn't answer. He'd grown so heavy in Dean's arms that he wasn't sure if his dad was still conscious. He eased John down on the ground next to the car, and opened the door to the back seat. He had to climb in and pull John in behind him, jostling his wounded leg and eliciting a choked cry of protest from the older man.

With John situated in the back seat, Dean closed the door and turned to get behind the wheel when the world suddenly faded, going silent and gray. He felt himself tip, caught at the shoulder by the roof of his car. The feel of her sturdy body against his brought him back with a nauseating swiftness.

This time, he couldn't swallow the bile, bite back the cry of pain, or stop himself from going to his knees. The force of his retching tore at his side and all he gave up, it seemed, was water. When he was finished, he lifted the back of his hand to his mouth, not noticing how it trembled as his entire body was shaking. Reaching up, he opened the door and pulled himself inside, digging the spare keys from the glove box and starting up the car. He punched the heater and turned the wheel, heading for town and the nearest hospital.

"Guess it's a good thing you t-taught us to locate the hospitals first, Dad," Dean said, knowing John wasn't listening. "Hospital, hotel, library. Always in that order."

He drove through a red light, took a four-way stop on two wheels, and arrived at the ER with two police cruisers behind him. Stumbling from the car, he lifted his hands, a battered image. Standing in his wet T-shirt and jeans, his face bruised and dirty, hands up, he waited until the police approached him.

"Where the hell's the fire, Son?" one asked.

Dean tipped his head, willing his body not to follow. "My Dad," he said. "He's hurt. Pretty bad."

The other cop whistled, waving at someone on the other side of the Impala. In moments, Dean was moved aside and the cops and two men in dark blue scrubs were pulling John from the back of the car and laying him on a stretcher.

"Jesus H. Christ, kid," one of the men in scrubs exclaimed upon seeing John's leg. "What the hell happened to you guys?"

"He… got kicked," Dean said, finding it hard to make his tongue obey his commands. There was an odd ringing in his ears, as if an alarm was going off somewhere in the distance.

They began to wheel John toward the door. A cop rested a hand on Dean's shoulder, then pulled it back. "Why are you wet?"

"I, uh… I f-fell in the ocean," Dean said, shivering as he shut and locked the Impala, then shoved the keys into his pocket. He followed the cop around the trunk of the Impala, his hip on her body the whole time, reluctant to part with the impression of safety she offered him.

The cop at his side was still talking, asking him questions, but Dean's eyes were on the rapidly disappearing stretcher bearing his father down the hall, words like _severe bone fracture… low blood pressure… surgery…_ filtering back to him.

He bounced off of the shoulder of a female nurse, pushed back as another person in the ER waiting room shoved at him to get by. He felt hollow, as if his insides had been scooped out and deposited elsewhere. The world was about three feet away from him, the sounds tinny and senseless. The overhead lights were too bright and he squinted up at them, wondering who needed lights that powerful while they waited to hear if their family was alive or dead.

_I need to call Sam, _he thought, patting his pockets clumsily, clueless as to where he last saw his phone. He turned to the officer on his right, who was staring at him, brows gathered in concern, still talking.

"Can I use your phone?" he said, unaware that he was yelling. He couldn't seem to hear his own voice. "Need… need your phone," he repeated, blinking as the cop started to blur around the edges. The cop said something; Dean saw his lips move, but he couldn't make out the words. "Just… hey, I just… I just need your…"

With a slow spin, the rotation of the world decided now was a good time to toss him off. He felt his knees disappear, registered the sensation of falling, and with a last, slow blink, sank forward into the abyss of a stranger's arms.

* * *

**a/n**: And so it begins. This story—if told properly—will have a few layers of a story-within-a-story. And I hope you take the journey with me.

If anyone is curious, I decided not to incorporate Adam or his mother, except in passing references to John's "escapes." Hope that's okay.

**Playlist**:

_Night Moves_ by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band (always loved that name)

_Don't Let Me Down_ by Bad Company

_Shook Me All Night Long_ by AC/DC

_Lonely Is The Night_ by Billy Squier


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer/ Spoilers**: See Chapter 1

**a/n**: Thanks so much for spending time with my words; believe me, I appreciate it so much when you let me know that you've read and I hope that you continue to enjoy.

Also, I've been remiss in mentioning my good friends who are my safety net, my sanity check, and my push over the edge. **Thruterryseyes**, **EFW**, and **Sojourner**, thank you so much for the time you spend to make sure I don't embarrass myself too much with my grammatical weaknesses. You each offer me different catches, and even if I don't say it publically each chapter, you have my gratitude.

Those of you who've read my stories before know that I stake no claim in the medical community. However, that said, I have been a patient, and I have been a care-taker, and I have done online research on the mess I've gotten these two into. I hope you can allow for some leniency in healing for the sake of the story.

This is one of those "gets you from Point A to Point B" chapters. More introspection and angst than action. But, I promise you, action is to come. Oh, and Brinnon, WA, is a real place; I've taken liberties with its economic situation and layout. I think that's it. For now.

* * *

_Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go by any rules. They're not like aches or wounds; they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material. _

~F. Scott Fitzgerald

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_October, 2001_

Sam was hiding.

He always did this, right when Dad needed to _go_ _now, Dean, we need to go_. And Dean was always ready to go; he'd be on Dad's six if it weren't for the fact that Sam was hiding. It's not as if there were many places to hide—usually Sam's would be in a closet, or under the bed.

He liked to be found. Dean knew by the way Sam's cat-like eyes lit up, crinkling around the corners, his voice squealing in little-kid delight when Dean snaked an arm into the closet or under the bed and grabbed for Sam's body, that he liked to be found.

It's not the hiding—it's the fact that Dean always searched for him. Dean always went after him. Dean always found him.

"Gonna find you…"

He thought he knew where Sam was going to be, but when he dropped to his knees and ducked his head under the bed, the only thing he saw was the sad, shriveled body of a dead box turtle. Drawing back in revulsion, Dean stood and turned, searching for the closet door.

He felt sure that Sam would be in the closet, crouched down in the corner, legs tucked up to his chin, eyes peering out beneath shaggy bangs. Those eyes that could gut Dean while simultaneously pissing him off. Those eyes that were all _Sam_.

But he couldn't find the closet door. They'd stayed in so many rooms, so many different set-ups, that he'd forgotten where the closet was.

"Gonna find you, Sammy…"

He hurried from the room with the bed and found himself in another room with a bed. On the other side of that room was a door, which had to be the closet, he reasoned. Striding across the room, knowing Sam wasn't under the bed with the dead turtle, he reached for the knob and pulled it open, stepping across the threshold into another room with a bed.

His heart began to pound, something dark and heavy seeping into his bones.

"Sam!"

_Stop hiding… Dad's ready to go, you need to come back now._

"Sam, come back. Now!"

This room had no doors.

No windows.

Only white walls, white floor, white blanket covering a white bed.

Maybe Sam was under _this_ bed; maybe he'd just looked in the wrong place. He dropped to his knees, suddenly truly afraid. He never had to look so hard for Sam before. His hand felt too heavy—as if it wasn't really a part of him—as he reached for the blanket to pull it away from the frame. He ducked his head slowly to peer beneath the bed.

No Sam.

No turtle.

Nothing but inky black, contrasting so sharply with the white of the room that it felt as though it were alive. Dean stared, trying to see something—_anything_—in the black. He didn't blink, he didn't breathe.

He just stared.

A hand reached out from the black, grabbing his shirt and pulling him forward. Dean yelped, jerking back, scrambling away. The hand held on and as he backed away, the hand grew an arm and a shoulder and a neck and a head and a face.

His father's face, words tearing from him heavy with accusation.

"He's gone."

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With a ragged gasp that licked his lungs with liquid fire, Dean opened his eyes, sweat chilling his body. He felt jolted. As if he'd been wrenched into the present from a coveted world. He blinked, rapidly at first, then with a slow, vision-clearing motion that managed to bring his surroundings into focus. His head was a jumble of puzzle pieces—cut-up images of rooms with doors overlapped with the too-sharp reflections of the ocean, the beach, and blood.

Too much blood.

He took a shallow, shaky breath, feeling the tight tug of muted pain at his side. His body hurt; there wasn't a joint that didn't ache. He was profoundly tired—too tired to put the mixed up pieces in his head back together. He knew that he had to form the picture; slide it together to see where he'd been if he had any hope of deciphering what to do next.

First, though, he needed to figure out where the hell he was. Because all he could see was white. White walls. White sheets. White floor.

Something was protruding from the back of his right hand. It pinched when he shifted. His mouth was dry. His body felt both weightless and pinned down; as if he were coming off an easy buzz. From a distance, he heard a tinny, intercom-enhanced voice calling for a Doctor Morgan.

_Hospital… _

Why was he in the hospital? Where were Sam and Dad? Why couldn't he hear them, feel them nearby, see them peering back from the odd gloom of the too-white room? Looking from one side of the bed to the other, he carefully searched for an answer. For someone to fill in the gaps, put the pieces back together.

Someone to tell him why his side hurt so fucking much.

Dean pulled his lower lip in against his teeth, running the tip of his tongue over the chapped skin. The dryness in his mouth seemed to be enhanced by the waning of whatever they'd given him in an effort to mask the pain.

"Hey, there," a soft voice called from his right.

He jerked in surprise, immediately regretting the motion when a wicked laugh of heat slipped under the cover of the drugs and ripped through his side.

"Oh, sorry," the voice said again, stepping into his line of sight. "I thought you saw me."

He took in dark green scrubs and short, white hair. He couldn't clearly make out the person's face, but he was able to tell that the voice belonged to a woman. He turned his head slowly, willing his vision to follow and not lag behind as it seemed to want to do.

"Where—" His dry throat seized around the end of the word and he closed his eyes, trying once more to wet his lips.

"Here," the woman said, resting a cool hand on his bare arm. "Small sips."

He opened his eyes and saw a straw extended from a Styrofoam cup directed at his mouth. Taking the plastic between his lips, he sipped several times.

"Better?"

Dean nodded, a feeling he wasn't accustomed to digging talons into his heart: panic. _Sam and Dad… Sam and Dad… Sam and Dad…_

The drugs were wearing off rapidly. Pressure closed in around his eyes as his heart began to speed up, climbing his ribcage in an effort to escape.

"Thought you were going to sleep my shift away again, Steve."

Dean looked to his left, seeing no one else in the room. He looked back at the nurse, trying to focus in on her face.

"You want some more water?"

"Yeah," Dean croaked, trying to shift up higher in the bed. Being addressed by a name he didn't recognize confused him further. They must've been on a hunt… It had obviously gone very bad…

_Where the hell is Sam?_ If he was hurt, then Sam…

"Hang on, Steve," the nurse said. "Let me help you with that."

She pressed a button at the base of his bed and the top began to rise slowly. As his head came up, Dean felt as if his blood was sloshing inside his body, the churning focused specifically on his stomach. He hated the effects of pain medication; the benefits did _not _outweigh the anxiety and nausea that always hit him several minutes after he woke up.

"Can I get…" he swallowed, closing his eyes and laying his head back as his stomach clenched and sweat broke out on his upper lip. "Can I get something else for… for the pain?"

"Something… else?" the nurse asked.

"Somethin'… diff'rent…" Dean breathed, pressing his lips together. _Anything but this… _He'd rather feel the full extent of the pain than the nausea that resulted from the drug.

Within moments he felt a cool cloth across his forehead and something small and hard placed in his hands. He cracked one eye open and saw it was a pink, kidney-shaped bowl about the length of his forearm.

"Wassthis?" he slurred.

"Just in case," the nurse said. "Hang in there. I'm getting you something for the nausea."

Dean lay still, trying not to think, trying not to remember, simply breathing. After a bit he felt the distortive dizziness subside and was able to open his eyes. He kept himself still, waiting as he listened to the nurse adjust things on a beeping machine to his right, then felt her touch the IV port on his hand.

"There," she said finally. "Changed up your medication. You should be able to tolerate this better than the morphine. Feeling any better, Steve?"

"Why d'you keep… calling me Steve?" Dean asked.

He heard her pick something up and turned his head carefully to see that she was holding a clipboard, frowning at the contents.

"Steve Perry," she read. "Arrived yesterday, early morning. Collapsed in the ER."

With that, memory returned in a rush so fierce he nearly gasped. Thoughts almost fully formed crashed against each other, the end of one eating into the beginning of another as his mind scrambled through confusion to orient him into the now.

_Dad Sam didn't die he's at school you're not taking him I'm your child not a bad plan gonna turn you into a pair of boots hang in there Dad need to use your phone…_

"Looks like they got your name from a business card in your jacket. Card said you're a… talent scout. What sort of talent? Acting?"

Finally remembering, Dean closed his eyes. He hadn't used that alias in months. He purposely hadn't had ID on him, but he hadn't thought to clean out the pockets of the old Carhart jacket he'd been wearing. Usually, Sam was the one to wear that jacket; Dean wore the old leather one he'd permanently borrowed from his Dad.

But with Sam gone…

"I borrowed the jacket," he said, looking up at the nurse. "My name's not Steve. I don't know where that card came from."

"Oh!" The nurse's laugh was good-natured. "Well, what can I call you then?"

"Dean."

"Hi, Dean," she said. "I'm Caroline."

He found a smile hidden somewhere in his fog of discomfort. "Hey, Caroline," he said as she began to wrap a blood pressure cuff around his bicep. "How's my dad?"

"Your dad?" Caroline asked as she pressed a button on one of the machines to his right and he felt the cuff tighten as it filled with air.

"The guy I came in with," Dean continued. "Broken leg?"

Caroline charted some numbers, then pulled out a thermometer. "I'm sorry, Dean," she said, "I don't know about your dad. But I can find out for you."

"Yeah, please," Dean said. "You said I've been here since yesterday?"

She nodded, tucking a plastic sleeve over the tip of the thermometer. "Got here just as my shift started yesterday morning. You haven't moved until now."

"No one saw the guy I came in with?"

Caroline's eyes softened. "I'm sorry. But I'll find out, okay?"

"Okay. Then tell me when I can get out of here."

Caroline's eyebrows bounced up and Dean saw her mouth quirk. As she leaned forward to place the thermometer between his lips, he caught a light whiff of perfume. He looked back up at Caroline's time-tested face. The scent made her suddenly seem younger than he'd first thought.

"Let me get your doctor first," Caroline replied as she peered at his temperature, then wrote another number down on his chart. "You've been unconscious for the better part of two days. You're not going to be leaving here anytime soon."

"Unless I sign myself out," Dean argued, knowing it was possible.

He'd only been in the hospital two other times since he began hunting with his father. Once for a stab wound—courtesy of a fight with a werewolf—that John hadn't been able to close on his own, and another time for pneumonia when he and Sam had been left to their own devices for a few days too long. Both times John had slipped him out before too many questions had been asked. Every other injury—and there had been several—had been repaired by his father or one of the hunters John trusted with his sons. This was the first time he'd landed in the hospital since he'd turned eighteen and would be able to sign himself out AMA.

"You just sit tight," Caroline said, arching a thinly-plucked brow. "Let me get the doctor."

She left, wheeling a high cart ahead of her. Dean lay back against the bed, shoving the white blanket down to his legs and lifting the loose-fitting hospital gown so that he could get a better look at his aching side. As he suspected from the itching, his torso had been wrapped tightly. He could make out colorful bruising peeking from the bottom and top of the bandages.

Seeing the catheter had him groaning with frustration. He might be willing to remove his own IV, but there was no way he was pulling that mother out. He dropped the gown just as the door opened and a dark-haired, tired-looking man walked in, followed by Caroline. He was dressed in street clothes, but had a stethoscope around his neck and a plastic hospital badge clipped to the collar of his Oxford shirt.

"So, Caroline tells me you want out of here," the man said.

"Guess you're the doctor, then," Dean replied.

"Doctor Teller," he confirmed, his wolf-like blue eyes skimming over Dean's bruised face. "I treated you after you passed out in my ER yesterday."

"Had a rough morning," Dean replied, instinctively drawing away from the doctor's cold, business-like tone.

"So it would seem," Dr. Teller replied. Pulling out a pen light, the doctor leaned close and lifted Dean's eyelid with a smooth, cool touch, flashing the light in one eye, then the other. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he straightened and picked up Dean's chart.

"Three cracked ribs—not broken, but enough bruising to make Tyson proud. Two-inch gash in your scalp, but MRI showed no bleeding on the brain and you don't appear to be concussed. You were running a slight fever and showing signs of severe muscular exhaustion."

Dr. Teller looked up from the chart, his eyes glittering as he regarded Dean, seemingly looking for an explanation.

"Told you," Dean repeated, matching the doctor's steely gaze. "It was a tough morning."

"Uh-huh," Dr. Teller nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. "Anything else you want to tell me?"

Dean lifted a brow. "How about _you_ tell _me_ how my dad is?"

At this, Dr. Teller's eyebrows dropped. "Your dad?"

"Yeah," Dean bit off. "Beard, dark hair, leg a mangled mess?"

Dr. Teller looked to his side. "Caroline?"

"I promised him I'd check," Caroline replied.

"We'll check," Dr. Teller repeated.

"I'm not deaf," Dean shot back. Now that his nausea was controlled and he was more aware, he wanted desperately to get out of that bed and begin roaming the halls looking for his father himself. "So, when can I get out of here?"

"Did you hear anything I just told you?" Dr. Teller asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Yeah—you said I was banged up, but not dying," Dean replied, unconsciously tightening his hands into fists.

"You're what? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?"

"Twenty-two," Dean replied.

Dr. Teller rested both hands at his waist. "Your body is showing signs of fatigue from a man twice your age. You're wearing down, son. Whatever you're doing, it's going to shut off on you one day. The muscles along your ribcage are torn. Further abuse, any continued tearing, and those cracked bones are going to become _fractured_ bones. Do you understand what that means?"

"I think I can figure it out," Dean said, suppressing a wince.

"It means," Dr. Teller continued, as if Dean hadn't spoken, "that your body is wounded and needs time and rest to heal."

"Neither of which I need to be here to do," Dean pointed out. "So why don't you get this tube outta me and find my dad."

After a beat of silence, Dr. Teller shot a look at Caroline. "Get him the AMA papers. I'll write up a script for Zithromax and Lortab. Make sure he fills them before he leaves."

"What's—" Dean started.

"You had some fluid in your lungs, kid," Dr. Teller said, pulling out a small prescription pad and scribbling on it. "The Zithromax is an antibiotic that should help hold off a respiratory infection. The Lortab—"

"Yeah, I know what that is," Dean interrupted.

Dr. Teller glanced his way. "I bet you do," he muttered, then handed the prescriptions to Caroline. "Have him get these filled. I mean it."

"Okay," Caroline nodded. "About his name—"

"Oh, right," Dr. Teller turned to face Dean as if just remembering there was still a patient in the room.

Dean raised an eyebrow and fanned the fingers of his left hand in a cocky wave. "Still here."

"I understand the name on your chart is incorrect?"

Dean simply tilted his head.

Dr. Teller narrowed his eyes. "We need your name for insurance purposes."

"Yeah, wouldn't want you to not get paid," Dean sassed. Before either of them could say anything he cut in with, "Find my dad and you'll get your information."

Dr. Teller's mouth twitched with irritation and Dean stared back silently. Suddenly, the doctor leaned forward, one hand on the guardrail of the bed, the other on his hip.

"I don't know what you're into and I don't care. You want to get back out there and kill yourself? Fine by me. Just make sure you finish the damn job before you come back to my ER." Dr. Teller looked at Caroline once more. "Get him unhooked and get that paperwork finished."

"Understood."

With that, the doctor turned and left the room, his attempt to slam the door thwarted by the pneumatic hinges. Dean blinked in surprise, then sat back against the bed, a modicum of respect for the man's outburst settling like bemusement across his features.

"What a dick," he muttered.

"I-I'm so sorry about that," Caroline stammered. "Dr. Teller is… well, you're not seeing the man we know."

"Oh, yeah?" Dean commented. "He miss eating a small child for breakfast or something?"

Caroline winced. "He lost his daughter. About a month ago."

"Oh," Dean replied, deflated. "How?"

"She drowned," Caroline said. "The police thought it was accidental—even though her…" she looked down and forced through thin lips, "…her eyes were missing when they found her body."

"Oh, shit," Dean muttered, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Misinterpreting his curse, Caroline continued. "I know, it's awful. There were three more after her. I saw on the news that they think it's the work of a serial killer."

_It was, _Dean thought. "Were the rest of the kids local?"

"Yeah," Caroline nodded. "It's so hard, you know? For a town this size."

"Were they all… y'know, doctors' kids?"

Caroline looked at him strangely. "Why do you ask?"

Dean blanked his features, turning carefully innocent eyes onto the nurse. "I've had some experience with serial killers," he replied.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said softly. "No, just Annie. Cody Lawson's and James Sutcliff's parents are architects and Teresa Bowing's father is a lawyer."

Dean nodded, filing the information away to discuss with his father later. He'd never really been around for the aftermath. He'd seen the suffering of the action, found the source of the pain, and eliminated it. He'd never had to watch the victims pick up the pieces. It had been enough to see his dad shatter a little more each day they hunted evil without finding his mother's killer.

As Caroline turned to leave, he caught her wrist. "Wait," he said. "Can you, uh… will you cut me loose here?" He glanced down at his lap, the hospital gown hiding the catheter.

"You really think you can get up on your own?"

"Hell, yeah," he replied, resisting the urge to squirm.

"Okay," she nodded, pulling some latex gloves from a box on the wall. "Dean?"

"Hmm?"

"It's not my place, but…"

Dean laid his head back, closing his eyes, and worked to move his mind away from what the nurse was about to do. "What is it?"

"Did… did this Sam person have anything to do with your experience with the serial killer?"

Dean opened his eyes, bringing his head up quickly, feeling the blood drain from his face and leave pinpricks of shock on his skin. "Sam?"

"You were dreaming a lot," she explained, her eyes soft once more. "And you kept saying the name Sam. I just thought that… well, you sounded so… so sad. I thought maybe Sam had something to do with the serial killer."

Dean swallowed, easing his head back, a heavy pounding replacing the tight feeling around his eyes. "Not in the way you mean," he said, his strangled voice foreign in his ears. "Sam is my brother."

"I see," Caroline replied. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to pry."

"Don't worry about it," Dean sighed, closing his eyes again. "Let's just get this over with."

She finished removing the catheter and then capped his IV, telling him she'd remove it from his hand once the forms for his release had been completed.

He waited until Caroline had gathered her supplies and left the room before he swung his legs over the side of the bed, rolling slowly to his side and groaning as he pushed himself to a sitting position. When the world balanced itself once more, he stood, wrapping an arm around his middle, and shuffled to the bathroom. Each step seemed to shoot a jolt of electric pain from his hip to his teeth, hovering long enough along his left side to make him want to throw up.

Working to pull in slow breaths and not the quick gasps for air his body wanted to resort to, he passed the sink and headed for the toilet, ignoring his reflection in the mirror. He knew what he would see there: a weary fighter, a soldier without a war, a brother alone.

He finished his business, then splashed water onto his face awkwardly with one hand. By the time he returned to the bed he was trembling from exhaustion and the worry for his dad was like acid in his gut. He looked at the beige phone resting on the nightstand at the head of the bed and thought about what he should do.

Seeing his bag of clothes tucked under the foot of the bed, he sighed. He knew he wouldn't be able to Bend over and pull it out. The idea caused bile to step up to the plate. He breathed out slowly to dispel the sudden return of nausea, then used his toes to fish out the bag and kicked it to the chair positioned next to the bed. Sitting down slowly, he allowed himself a low groan. There was no one to hear his weakness.

He whimpered slightly as the cold plastic of the chair shocked the back of his bare legs, then looked at the phone once more.

"Sammy, Dad's hurt. I'm hurt. We're falling apart without you," he murmured, staring at the gray buttons on the face of the phone. "Come on back, okay?"

He picked up the receiver, pressing the earpiece against his forehead, feeling the skin on his knuckles stretch as he tightened his fist. His heart thudded painfully; he could feel it in his teeth, behind his eyes, at the base of his ears.

He knew he'd never ask his brother to come back. No matter how much he needed him, no matter how much _Dad_ needed him, Sam needed this more. Sam needed his chance. And even if it killed him, Dean was going to give it to him.

Taking a shallow breath, Dean set the receiver back in the cradle with a trembling hand and looked down at the plastic bag filled with clothes.

"You're going to be a bitch to put on," he informed the bag. "And I bet you stink like dead turtle."

"_Think someone summoned it?"_

"_Maybe. Could be it hitched a ride with a fishing trolley. I don't give a damn. All I know is, it's here, and it's killed four kids already."_

The Kappa was dead, but Dean's gut was screaming at him that this was far from over. Brinnon, WA, still had an enemy. He just wasn't sure it was the kind he knew how to kill.

www

John had been awake for hours.

Not just awake, but unable to sleep. Anesthesia had a strange effect on him. The moment he opened his eyes after surgery, he'd been hyper-alert, unable to turn off his mind, unable to calm down, unable to turn away from the one thought that continued to beat into him long after the Dean killed the Kappa.

He'd screwed up.

It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. But that didn't make the knowledge any easier to swallow. He wasn't even sure where he'd gone wrong; his memory was a horror-movie of images and pain, one thing cutting clear through the cacophony of failure: his son's voice.

"_Hang in there, Dad. I see her… just a bit further, okay?"_

He'd heard the hurt in Dean's voice. Remembered seeing the creature's blow crash against his kid's body with such force it had emptied the air from his own lungs. He knew that for all intents and purposes, Dean should be lying dead on that beach.

Because John had screwed up.

Yet here _he_ was, in a hospital bed, machines beeping steadily around him, narcotics swimming happily through his blood stream, his leg suspended in a complicated-looking hammock, encased in a blue air cast. The pain he'd felt yesterday on that beach was a brittle memory; his leg was numb, his body warm, drugs making him comfortable. He was here because Dean had made sure to get him here. Dean had hauled his ass off that beach, despite an injury John knew had to have felt like heat-lightning jolting through his system.

He rubbed his face, muttering aloud, "Where the hell are you?"

He was used to being alone—had put himself in situations like this on more occasions than he cared to admit during his hunting career. But never when he didn't know where his boy was—_how_ his boy was. Never when one of the boys was hurt.

Closing his eyes, he tried to find Mary.

She was his solace when he was raw, when life laid him bare and the walls were closing in. Even eighteen years after her death, her face, her voice, hell, even the way she'd smelled could be summoned as a source of comfort. There were times, though, when pieces were missing. Moments that could fill in the blanks of her image were lost in the collage of experiences he'd survived over the years.

Whether it was the drugs, or the trauma, John found he couldn't quite complete the picture of his wife. He saw her honey-colored hair, always long and hanging past her shoulders in a mass of natural waves and curls. He saw her eyes, green with a slight slant toward mischief.

But he couldn't see her mouth. And it was her mouth he wanted. Her mouth smirking at him. Her mouth wrapping around his name. Her mouth pressed against his.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, John looked toward the blind-covered windows, a rush of impotent rage sweeping through him like a fever. He fumbled for the remote call box and pressed the 'nurse' sign.

After a moment a tired voice clicked on. _"Yes?"_

"Anytime one of you feels like doing your job, you're welcome to come in here."

"_Do you need something, Mr. MacGillicuddy?"_

"Yes, I fucking need something," John snapped, irritation flushing his rage higher as he tried and failed to sit up straighter in the bed. "I need someone to get the hell in here and tell me where my kid is."

"_We are looking into it, sir,"_ the same tired voice replied. _"Your nurse will be in to check on you in just a bit."_

John pushed the call box off of the bed and listened with perverse satisfaction as it clattered to the floor. He fumbled with the bed controls until he was sitting up straighter. He didn't like not being able to feel his leg—not that he wanted to be in pain. He'd caught a glimpse of the mess the Kappa made of his shin and it wasn't something he wanted to see again anytime soon.

But not being able to feel _anything_ left him with a helpless lack of control. At least pain was something he could channel, use, focus. This _nothing_ was taking away his grip.

_Rein it in, Winchester!_ He heard the bark so loudly that he jumped in surprise, looking around him despite the fact that he knew the voice wasn't real. _You a pansy or what? What's the first objective when in hostile territory? _

John lifted a hand to his face, smoothing his palm over his wiry beard and sighing. "Control the situation and neutralize the threat."

_What is your threat?_

John lifted his eyes to stare vacantly at his casted leg. "Losing Dean."

He'd spent the better part of the night and most of the morning retracing his steps, finding lost pockets of time. He remembered stabbing the Kappa, pinning it to the ground. He remembered ordering Dean to burn the corpse. He remembered moments of the trek to the Impala, but then he lost track of his son. He woke to a confusion of lights and strange faces, pain and barking orders. An oxygen mask had been placed over his face and he'd lost more time.

Leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling, John resorted to his search for Mary. While Sam buried his nose in a book and Dean lost himself in music during the long drives between hunts or hide-outs, John talked with his wife. When he was alone he spoke to her aloud; when he was with his boys, they shared secret, whispered conversations in his head. She kept him sane.

But, he hadn't spoken with her since he'd been struck with Sam's declaration that he'd been accepted at Stanford—_Stanford_ for Christ's sake—and that he was leaving them to search out his own future.

"Mary," he sighed, letting his eyes slip closed. "I lost Sam. I'm… I'm gonna lose them both. I can't… I can't fucking hold on…"

He'd developed a trick several years ago, the first time he'd not been able to fully picture Mary. He pulled up a memory—a specific memory—and she returned to him.

It was the moment they'd decided to become parents.

**

"_What do you mean, you think you're ready?"_

_Mary stood, her blonde hair trapped by a red bandana pulling the curls away from her face, one of his old Marine T-shirts knotted Beneath her breasts, exposing her flat stomach, and cut-off jeans hugging her slim hips. Her hands were splattered with the white—correction _ecru_—paint she was slathering on the hallway walls of their recently-purchased house._

"_I mean, _ready_," he said, turned on by the sight of her wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Y'know, to pull the goalie." _

"_Oh, nice, John."_

"_What?" He chuckled, shrugging innocently._

_She dropped the paintbrush back into the bucket, resting her hands on her hips and leaving slim fingerprints on her shorts. "We just got this house. You just got into the business with Mike. You sure you're ready to get into _that_?"_

_John stepped closer, reaching for her, but lowered his hands when she took a tense step back. "Isn't this the same Mary Campbell that said she wanted a family? That wanted kids coming out of the woodwork?"_

_Mary arched an eyebrow. "No," she shook her head and a curl fell loose from the knot at the back of her head. "This is Mary _Winchester_ who hasn't really gotten over the fact that she lost her whole family and is still trying to figure out how to be a wife."_

_His throat tightening, John moved into her personal space, scooping her up against him before she had time to pull away. Her waist was so small he was able to touch his elbows. He loved how she fit him—like a piece of his puzzle._

"_You haven't lost your whole family," he said softly. "You'll always have me."_

"_I know, John, but—"_

"_And I think," he continued, interrupting her and drawing her eyes to his face, "that with your brains, and my beauty, we could make some pretty fantastic kids."_

_As he'd known she would, Mary grinned. "Brains and beauty, huh?"_

_He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "And you know," he said softly, his lips on the crown on her head. "I can't think of a better way to honor your parents than to name their grandkids after them."_

_Mary ducked her head Beneath his chin. "Grandkid__**s**__? How many are you planning to have?" Her voice was muffled against his chest._

"_Well, we got four names to work with, right?"_

_Mary laughed against his throat. _

"_What do you say?" John prompted, rubbing his hand against the bare skin at the small of her back._

"_I say," she murmured, pressing her lips against his neck, "that goalie's played his last game."_

**

"Dad?"

John opened his eyes, jolted from his reverie to find Dean standing next to his bed. Relief surged through him like a wave, leaving him slightly dizzy.

"Dean?" His voice sounded rough, old to his ears. Too much whiskey and not enough rest had changed it from the voice of his memory into the voice of his reality. "Where have you been?"

He hadn't meant for his words to sound accusatory, but he didn't miss the quick flinch in Dean's eyes as he stared down at him.

"I, uh… had a little trouble finding you," Dean said, easing himself slowly into the stiff chair next to John's bed. He was wearing his own jeans and boots, but his shirt had been replaced by an over-sized, long-sleeved scrub top and his jacket was missing. A wince slid across his bruised face as he settled.

"Turns out I took a header back in the ER yesterday—" Dean informed him, his words like hole-punches of sound.

"You okay?" John frowned. His son's face was pale, his bruises standing out like paint on his skin.

Dean tossed him a casual grin and a brief lift of his shoulder. "Nothing I can't handle. How about you?" His eyes traced John's suspended leg.

"My leg's busted," John replied.

"Uh, yeah." Dean lifted a brow. "That much I worked out on my own."

"That bastard hit you pretty hard, Son," John said softly, needing to know, not able to ask. Dean wouldn't meet his eyes; that told John that he was hiding something.

"I'm okay, Dad," Dean assured him. "Coupla cracked ribs, bruises."

John narrowed his focus, waiting. He watched Dean pull in a shallow breath, then slide his eyes from John's leg to his father's eyes. They stared at each other almost a full minute as John tried to find an outlet for the jumble of worried words caught inside his heart.

"They towed the Impala," Dean said suddenly.

"What? Why?"

Dean glanced down. "I left it in the entrance way when they, uh… came and got you."

"You know where it is?"

Dean nodded. "I just gotta get a ride to the—" He broke off, his lips folding into a tight line as he pressed a hand against his side. His eyes fluttered closed and John watched anxiously as a line burrowed itself between his gathered eyebrows.

"Dean?"

"'M okay," he replied. "Just need a minute."

John swallowed, wanting to will the nerve-blocking effect of his own pain medication to his son by virtue of osmosis. "They give you anything to take with you?" he asked, knowing the only reason Dean was sitting here now was because he'd insisted on leaving, against medical advice.

Dean nodded. "Some antibiotics—guess I have some crap in my lungs."

"Jesus, don't cough, kid," John advised.

"Uh, yeah, thanks for the tip, Dad," Dean lifted an eyebrow.

"What'd they give you for the pain?"

"Lortab," Dean said.

"Good—you get sick on the other stuff," John said softly, remembering with sudden clarity the many times he'd held his son, braced him, soothed him when he'd been younger. So very much younger.

"Don't remind me," Dean sighed. "Don't worry, Dad. I'll be ready to roll soon as you give the word."

"I'm afraid that's not going to be anytime soon," said a deep, female voice from behind them.

John lifted his head, not missing the muted groan from Dean as he instinctively turned toward the voice. A regal-looking African American woman entered the room, a manila folder in her hands. She wore a white lab coat over a brilliantly colored orange and red dress, and instead of a stethoscope, a long gold chain hung around her neck.

She slid warm brown eyes from John to Dean then back.

"Hello, Mr. MacGillicuddy," she said. "My name is Dr. Rice. I understand you were asking for assistance earlier. I apologize that it took us so long to get in here to help you."

Her calm voice completely disarmed John and he swallowed his automatic retort. Dean caught his eye and mouthed _MacGillicuddy_? He shook his head once in response. _Not now_.

"Uh, yeah," he said, clearing his throat. "I was, uh… trying to find my son."

Dr. Rice looked at Dean, her eyes skimming him quickly, taking in his bruises and disheveled appearance, as if she was cataloging them for later use. "And have you found him?"

"Yes," John nodded, offering no further explanation.

"Good," she smiled. "How are you feeling?"

John shot a sideways glance at Dean, noting the way his boy watched his face, looking for the same truth the doctor requested. He'd made it a practice to never confess weakness of this magnitude in front of his boys—with very rare exceptions. He didn't really see a way out of this, though.

"To be honest," John said, looking toward his suspended leg. "I can't feel much of anything."

"Don't be alarmed," Dr. Rice replied. "That's purposeful at this point. We gave you a local anesthesia that should wear off in another few hours. It was an extra precaution to help you gradually deal with the pain of such a compound fracture."

"So, when can he get out of here, Doc?" Dean asked.

Dr. Rice smiled as if she'd been expecting this. "I'm thinking not for awhile."

"Define _awhile_," John demanded.

"Mr. MacGillicuddy—may I call you Elroy?"

"Why not," John replied, ignoring Dean's smirk.

"Elroy, your leg sustained a complete compound fracture of the tibia with an incomplete fracture of the fibula. Do you understand what this means?" Her gaze took them both in.

"Got a pretty good idea," John and Dean replied in unison.

"I was able to set the fibula, but your tibia required assistance. I inserted a titanium band and three screws to mend the bone."

John swallowed. Dean remained silent.

"You will need to keep this leg elevated—sustaining no weight—for at least a week, possibly ten days. We will need access to the wound to check for infection. Infection is especially dangerous in bones, due to their limited blood flow, so we've put you on Ciprofloxacin. Do you have any allergies I should be aware of?"

"No," John replied, dropping his head back, but keeping his eyes on the doctor.

"Once you are ambulatory, you will require some physical therapy to remind your muscles how they should obey."

John felt his heart begin to thud heavily in his chest, claustrophobia squeezing him like a giant fist. In his periphery, he caught Dean gingerly rubbing his side. The kid's entire being was focused on the doctor; John was willing to bet Dean was unaware of this tale-tell sign of pain.

"So… how long until we can travel again?" Dean asked, a note of apprehension chased by hope lingering on the edges of his words.

Dr. Rice looked at him, then back at John. "You won't be going anywhere for at least six weeks, and that's being very optimistic."

The Winchesters were silent. Letting them have a moment, Dr. Rice put down John's file and moved to his suspended leg. "While I'm here, I'll take a peek at your wound."

John watched as she carefully pulled the Velcro bindings on the air cast free, exposing a clean patch of gauze about four inches long and two inches wide. Pulling up the tape, she peered at the stitches, then replaced the bandage with a nod.

"Everything looks good here, so far," she said as she reassembled the air cast. "I'll send your nurse in to take your vitals. Do you need anything else?"

John simply shook his head. When Dr. Rice looked at Dean, he muttered, "I'm good."

"You should get some rest," Dr. Rice told Dean. "You won't be any good to your father if you end up in here, too."

"Right, doc," Dean nodded, his voice a hollow echo of its usual sass.

The doctor left and John closed his eyes.

"Dad?"

"Yeah."

Dean didn't say anything for a moment and John turned his head to look at him. "What is it?"

Dean was staring at his hands, which lay open, palms up, in his lap. "Just…" His voice trailed off and John waited, too tired to fight, too wired to rest.

"I was thinking I'd call Sam."

John let the sentence lay between them, words falling apart as the letters dropped away. The _idea _of contact with Sam was so enticing it was painful. He knew Dean needed to do this, wanted to offer him that comfort, but couldn't bring himself to agree. Not yet. Not now.

"You need to get that car out of the impound lot before they see what's in the trunk," he said in lieu of addressing the actual issue at hand.

Dean pursed his lips, nodding as in agreement to a silent argument, then lifted his eyes to meet John's. "Yep," he replied. "Figure I'll add some weeks to our stay at that motel."

John grimaced. "Might be a problem."

"Oh yeah?" Dean lifted a brow. "How so?"

John looked away. "I, uh… I put the room on MacGillicuddy's card," he said, referring to the alias as though it was an actual person, which, in his mind, it was. Elroy MacGillicuddy and his two sons. On a road trip to see America. "There's not a lot of room on it."

"What'd you do that for?" Dean asked.

John looked over at him sharply. "Because we should have killed that fucking Kappa and been gone, that's why!"

Dean seemed to sink a bit in the chair, his face closing off, any pain that was simmering in his eyes evaporating as if he'd flipped a switch inside. "I don't think the hunt's over, Dad."

"What are you talking about?" John demanded, the rage from before circling him like a buzzard ready to feast.

"My doc from the ER—his girl was the first one to be killed."

"So?"

"So," Dean continued patiently. "One was a lawyer's kid, the other two sets of parents were architects."

"What's your point, Dean?"

"I still say someone summoned that thing, Dad," Dean insisted, his eyes flinty. "Not to go after the kids, but to go after the parents. I mean, think about it," he continued, warming to his topic, "those are all jobs that make some pretty good bank, right? What if there's something that connects the parents?"

John looked down, conceding the point. "Still… what does it matter?" He asked. "The Kappa's dead."

"Yeah, but…" Dean said softly. "What if it's not over?"

John shot him a look. "You're in no shape to hunt."

Dean lifted a brow. "Hello kettle. I'm pot. You're black."

"Watch your tone, boy," John grumbled, hearing the throat-clearing of the drill Sergeant in his mind. "I'm just saying… take it easy. I need you ready when I get out of here. Not running off half-cocked after some… some idea."

"I'll be fully-cocked," Dean said, pushing himself slowly to his feet. John watched him clench his jaw and close his eyes briefly before balancing himself. "You want me to bring you anything?"

"Where are you going?"

The muscle in Dean's jaw rolled as he tensed against another wave of pain. "To get the Impala. And then sweet talk the manager into letting us stay for awhile."

"We could just… go somewhere else," John said. They couldn't change up cards; he didn't have another in the same name.

"There isn't anywhere else," Dean sighed. "Not close to the hospital anyway. And I'm…"

_Tired_, John finished for him. His boy was tired. It radiated from him.

"No, you're right," John said. "Makes the most sense if we stay there."

"I'll be back," Dean said, heading for the door. "Might not be until tomorrow morning, though," he amended, a hand on his ribs.

"Dean," John called, waiting until Dean turned. As his son looked at him, his large eyes shadowed, he felt his words leave him, emotion surging in to take their place. "Never mind," he said tightly, then looked away, not allowing himself to relax until he heard the door click shut behind Dean.

www

"It would only be for a few more weeks," Dean lied. "Just until my dad gets out of the hospital."

"How did you say he was hurt again?" Mr. Glover, the motel manager, asked. He warily regarded Dean's hospital garb and bruised face as though pain was contagious.

"We… ran into some kind of… creature," Dean said, weariness invading his logic and jumbling his words. "On the beach."

"That's the Sergeant's friend, Pop," came a younger voice from behind the desk.

"Hush a minute, Aaron," Mr. Glover waved a hand behind him.

Dean peered over Mr. Glover's shoulder to see the kid he'd returned yesterday morning. He grimaced, uncertain if the fact that the kid recognized and remembered him would work in his favor.

"Let me run your card again," Mr. Glover told Dean. "Shouldn't be a problem as far as reservations go."

"Uh, yeah," Dean said, sliding a practiced smile across his features. _This is where I could really use Sam and his Little-Boy-Lost face_. "See, that's the thing. We don't have enough on that card… I was hoping that maybe you could… y'know, float us awhile?"

Mr. Glover's face clouded. "I'd love to help you, Son, I would, but," he glanced over his shoulder at Aaron. "I have my own family to consider."

Dean nodded. "Right. I understand."

He gripped the counter, wrapping an arm around his middle. He knew he was beginning to sway, but had to square away this final detail before he could allow himself to rest. The ride to the impound lot had beaten him up. The embrace of the Impala had been cold and unyielding, as if she were punishing him for leaving her behind.

If he could just get this last piece handled…

"Any way you could pay cash?" Mr. Glover was asking him.

"Cash?" he repeated, as if the word was foreign. He knew from the expression on Mr. Glover's face that he was starting to visibly appear as bad as he was feeling. "I don't… I don't have any cash."

"Well, if your pop's gonna be at St. Luke's for a bit, you could get a part-time job."

"A job," Dean said. "You hiring?"

Mr. Glover chuckled. "No, no. _I'm_ not, but, well, I just heard from Alice down at the café that Gus Spencer is looking for people."

"Gus Spencer," Dean said, fully aware that he was repeating everything Mr. Glover said, but unable to hold onto the information otherwise. "You know how I can get a hold of him?"

"Sure," Mr. Glover said. "I'll write his number down. You… you okay, Son?"

"Just tired," Dean lied, forcing himself to breathe shallowly as the pain in his side blossomed. "If you can spot me a day or two, I'll get you some cash."

"Sure," Mr. Glover said again, concern evident on his face. "Why don't you go rest. I'll send Aaron down with some fresh towels and stuff in a few hours."

"Okay, thanks. Oh, uh… what day is it?"

Mr. Glover's look of concern downshifted immediately into worry. "It's Friday, Son. The 5th of October."

"Thanks," Dean managed before turning away and stumbling toward the door.

The world started to fold in on him as he made his way down the awning-covered sidewalk toward their room. It took him three tries to fit the key into the door. He practically fell through the door, biting back a sob as his body protested the clumsy entrance.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered aloud, his voice hitching.

He closed the door behind him, dropping the key on the table just inside the door. He made his way to the kitchen sink, pulling out the bottle of Lortab pills Caroline had filled for him before he'd been free to find John. He popped one into his mouth, then cupped his hand under the faucet, gulping water and downing the pill.

The room was deafeningly quiet. He looked at the closed bedroom door that was John's room. Crossing to it quickly, he opened the door, pushing it wide. For good measure, he dropped a pillow from the bed in front of the door to prop it open. Moving to the closet, he opened the door, peering into both corners.

He left John's room and moved to his, regarding for a moment the untouched bed on the far side of the room. Two queens. Just like always. Propping his own door open, he inspected the closet, not truly exhaling until he was absolutely certain that he was alone in the room.

He sat carefully on the spare bed, his eyes resting on the jumbled mess of blankets and sheets wadded up on the bed he'd used, what, two? three? nights ago. A strange buzzing began in his ears. A hiss like an over-heated radiator. Or the static of a snow-filled TV screen at three a.m.

Standing, he crossed his room to the dresser that covered one wall. This time he didn't bite back the groan as his body berated him. It didn't matter. No one was there to hear him. To worry about him. To judge him. No Dad. No Sam. He turned on the radio, rolling the pad of his finger across the dial until he heard a vaguely familiar voice.

He leaned forward, resting his hands flat on either side of the radio, and hung his head. He let the music fill the room, fill him, offer him company in the loneliness he couldn't—he didn't want to—stand.

"_But everything changes if I could… turn back the years if you could… learn to forgive me then I could… learn to feel…"_

"You're such a punk, Sam," he heard himself saying suddenly, his voice tight. "You just… you couldn't take it, huh? Couldn't handle our life? Had to go see how the other half lives?"

He pushed against the dresser, not allowing himself to grimace, not allowing the bleat of pain to slip out. He stared at himself in the mirror fixed to the wall in front of him.

"I don't need you," he said to his reflection. "I don't need you, Sam. I don't need to take care of you. I don't need to worry about you. I got enough crap to deal with. I don't need to figure out how to save your ass on top of everything else. I'm glad you're gone."

The song ended and another took its place. Dean turned up the volume, letting Floyd's _Childhood's End_ tease back the quiet.

"I'm glad you're gone," he repeated, softer, staring at his own eyes, willing himself to believe the lie. "I'm glad you're gone."

He backed away from the dresser, leaving the radio on, unable to face the quiet of the room. The backs of his legs hit the untouched bed—Sam's bed—and he sat heavily. Without bothering to undress or even remove his boots, he lay back, one arm wrapped around his side, and pulled the comforter around him, sinking into the blank canvass of dreamless sleep.

A strange vibration coming from the direction of his hip drew him slowly from oblivion into a confused, dark awareness. His body felt too heavy. He had to pee. And someone was wailing on a guitar just outside of his room. Another buzz and he realized that the guitar was _in_ his room.

"What the hell?"

Dean rubbed the heel of his hand into his eyes, moaning in protest of being awake. When his hip buzzed a third time, he realized he'd tucked his cell phone into his jeans as he'd exited the Impala earlier.

"Oh, shit," he grumbled, clumsily digging it free and flipping it open, not bothering to look at the caller ID. There was only one person it could be. "Dad? You okay?"

There was a pause.

"_Dean?"_

His breath froze in his chest. It had been five weeks and three days. He'd burned six bodies—one of them a dog—killed a chupacabra and a Kappa. The country had suffered an unimaginable tragedy and had gone to war. He'd been cut up, knocked out, nearly drowned and was currently held together by Ace bandages.

"Sammy?"

"_Hey."_

In all that time, he'd only called Sam once. On September 12th. He'd left him a message, not mentioning New York, or their most recent hunt, or Dad, or himself. Just a _checkin' in with you, brother. Hope you're getting freaky at a sorority party. Toss back a brewski for me._

Sam hadn't called back. Hadn't called at all.

Until now.

"_Sorry… I know it's late."_

"What time is it?" Dean peered across the room at the clock radio. It blinked twelve o'clock repeatedly, revealing the fact that it had been unplugged and not reset. _Helpful, thanks._

"_Uh, it's like… two in the morning here." _

Dean didn't reveal that they were in the same time zone. "You okay?"

Another pause.

"Sam?" Worry spiked quickly and between one breath and the next, Dean calculated how quickly he could get from Brinnon to Palo Alto.

"_I got your message,"_ Sam said softly, his voice thick and slightly watery. _"Finally."_

"You been drinkin', man?" Dean lay very still, listening to Sam breathe, not wanting to disturb the temporary solace from pain.

"_No."_ Sam said. _"Just… haven't slept in awhile."_

"What is it?" Dean prompted.

Sam was quiet again and Dean let Don Henley try to escape from the _Hotel California_ in the background.

"_How's Dad?"_ Sam asked, evading Dean's question.

Dean rolled his lip against his teeth, debating. "Oh, y'know Dad…"

"_Is he there?"_

"Not… exactly."

"_Is he… okay?"_

"Dad's always okay, Sammy," Dean sighed, rolling to his right side and trying to push himself upright. He'd grown stiff in the time he'd laid still. He couldn't bite back the grunt of pain.

"_What happened?"_ Sam asked.

Dean sighed, giving in. "Cracked a coupla ribs," he managed.

"_How?"_

"Fighting a Kappa."

"_What the hell is that?"_

"Believe me, man, you don't want to know."

A familiar riff filled the silence between their thoughts.

"_You in the Impala?"_ Sam asked.

"No, why?"

"_I can hear Metallica."_

Dean huffed out a weak laugh. "It's the clock radio. In the motel room."

"_Trust I seek and I find in you. Every day for us something new. Open mind for a different view. And nothing else matters…"_

He waited another beat. "What's really going on, Sam?"

"_I just…"_ Sam paused and Dean heard the tears in his brother's voice close around the words he was pushing forward. _"It's just a lot different." _

"What is? School?"

"_Not… not being there. Wherever you are."_

Dean let his head hang low, stretching his taut neck muscles. _Was it possible to be homesick when you've never really had a home?_ he mused silently.

"You made any friends yet?"

"_Couple."_

"Met some hot chicks?"

"_One or two."_

"Anyone in particular?"

"_Dude… it's barely been six weeks."_

"I know, man! I'da been all over that inside of a day."

He heard his brother's grin when he replied. _"No shit."_

"You like your classes?"

Sam sighed. Dean felt it. He closed his eyes and listened as Sam relaxed into his favorite subject. He talked about his professors, about finding his classes, about the bars and the food, about the energy of the students and how odd it was to stay in the same place for so long.

"_I really… I mean, I think I could really have a… a home here, y'know?"_

"That's great, Sammy," Dean smiled. "I'm happy for you."

"_Yeah?"_

Dean nodded. "Yeah."

"_You guys… y'know… getting along?"_

"Dude, I'm not the one who pushes his buttons."

"_I know, but… I was just… worried."_

"About me and Dad?" Dean frowned.

"_Kinda, yeah."_

"We're fine, Sammy."

"_You hunting anything?"_

"I'm trying to figure that part out."

"_What do you mean?"_

"Kappa's dead, but… I think—"

He heard someone call Sam's name in the background.

"_Uh, Dean?"_

"You gotta bail," Dean nodded.

"_Yeah, sorry,"_ Sam said. _"My roommate and his friends just got back from a bar." _

"Next time go with them," Dean instructed.

"_Yeah, maybe."_

"Take care of yourself, brother."

"_You, too,"_ Sam said, and Dean heard the phone click as the line went dead.

"Miss you," he said softly into the receiver.

As he settled back against the bed, this time with his head on a pillow, he grinned ruefully at the sound of Steve Perry's voice ruminating, "_They say the road ain't no place to start a family… but right down the line it's been you and me…"_

Holding his phone in the palm of his hand, he sighed. "I'm glad you're gone," he said once more, but this time without malice. As peace found him for one moment, he slept.

www

"A job?" John said into the receiver, lack of sleep turning his voice into a growl. "What kind of a job."

"_A legit job, Dad,"_ Dean replied. _"We need the cash."_

"You in any shape to be working?"

"_I'll be fine. You want me to bring you something after I talk to this guy?"_

John sighed, scrubbing his face with his hand. "A razor," he muttered. "And my journal."

There was plenty he could be doing to catalogue what he knew so far of Mary's killer if he was going to be stuck on his ass for a week.

"_Got it. Anything else?"_

"Some real fuckin' food," John groused.

"_Real… fucking… food…"_ Dean repeated as though writing it down. _"Check. See you later."_

The sound of knuckles rapping against the wooden door drew John's attention. "Mr. Mac—_"_

"Just come in," John cut off the greeting as a male nurse entered the room. He'd quickly grown to hate the sound of his chosen alias. "Call me John."

The nurse frowned at his chart. "Says here that—_"_

"I know what the hell it says," John muttered. "John's my… middle name."

"Okay then," the nurse nodded amiably. "Gonna just check your vitals here."

"You're kidding," John deadpanned. He was rewarded with a tight smile that didn't meet the man's eyes. "Hey, there any way I can get access to some newspapers? Or a computer?"

The nurse's eyebrows bounced up. "Well, I can check on the newspapers, but, I'm afraid a computer is out of the question."

John shifted restlessly in his bed. Feeling had returned to his leg mid-way through the night and he hadn't been able to get back to sleep. Dean hadn't called and he'd stubbornly refused to call him to check in, writing it off to giving the kid a chance to rest and not to feeling sorry for himself, trapped in a hospital bed.

He'd never been one to sit still. It was one of the reasons he'd joined the Marines the moment he could. The chance for action, to make a difference. To be more than just a mechanic like his old man.

He'd certainly gotten more than he'd bargained for in that sense, but had it not been for the experience of a soldier, the discipline, the regimen, the focus, he may not have survived Mary's death. His boys may have been raised like warriors, trained to see through the bullshit humanity told itself in order to sleep at night, but at least they were alive. And they knew how to stay that way.

A muscle spasmed in his leg and he hissed as his bone throbbed. Each time he cursed the prison that was this bed, each time he thought to just say the hell with it and unhook the contraption suspending his leg at an elevated angle, the broken bone and tortured muscle and skin cried out to him, reminding him that even soldiers were human.

Even warriors could fall.

Skippy The Male Nurse—as John had taken to calling him, silently—continued his charting and checking, and John turned his attention back to the television and the loop of police interviews and parent interviews from the four dead children. Pleas for their safe return melded with tearful promises to seek vengeance for their too-early deaths. He'd not turned off the television since he woke at two a.m., scanning all cable channels for information on the so-called "Coastal Killer."

Since Mary had died, there had only been one or two times they'd ever stayed in one place without a hunt marring the hamlet he created. Both times, it had been to get Sam through a few years of school. Dean had never really put much stock in education; he'd seemed to agree with John that it was a necessary means to an end. When he'd dropped out at seventeen, John had been relieved.

He hadn't truly realized what worry was, though, until that day last August when Sam announced his plans. Until that moment, he'd had the false sense of security of Dean watching out for Sam, of the two of them together, safety in numbers. But now, Sam was alone and so far away.

And Dean…

"What's the deal with this serial killer?" John asked the nurse, needing a break from the quicksand of his own thoughts. "Anyone catch it?"

"It?" The nurse looked at him quizzically.

"_Him_," John amended. "Just… you know, anyone who does that sort of a thing… is a monster." He shrugged.

The nurse nodded. "So true," he replied. "I haven't heard anything since they found little Teresa Bowing, though."

John nodded. "Such a shame," he said, working on a leading question. "Her father was a… lawyer?"

The nurse nodded. He'd finished gathering John's vitals and was wrapping the blood pressure cuff up to insert back into the cart.

"What about the others?"

"Others?" The nurse frowned, his mind clearly on other things. "Oh, the other kids. Yes, a shame."

John sighed, knowing he wasn't going to get anywhere. "Don't forget my newspapers," John called after the retreating man.

"Sure thing, John," the nurse called back over his shoulder.

Clenching his jaw, John picked up the remote and began clicking through stations, needing something that didn't shoot digital-quality images through his head of Dean laying dead, bleeding, of Sam broken, lost. He needed something that helped him recall the surging rush of release that came from fighting the good fight. From doing the job. All he was able to find, however, were medical dramas, soap operas, and talk shows. He glanced at the clock. Three p.m.

"C'mon, Dean," he muttered, leaning forward to scratch the section of skin exposed at the top of his cast. _Ten days, my ass_, he thought. _I'm not gonna last _two_ days…_

www

Dean closed the phone, ending his call with John, and spared a heartbeat of thought toward the fact that he'd purposely not told John that he'd spoken with Sam. He wanted to hang onto that for a little while. He knew that when he told John, any good in that gesture would be tarnished with the sour taste of betrayal.

Dean showered, gingerly removing the bindings around his middle and allowing the seductive heat of the water to ease the deep-muscle aches that permeated his back. He'd leaned both hands against the wall Beneath the shower head and dropped his head low, lengthening his neck and carefully stretching his back as the water sluiced down the curve of his spine, fingers of warmth gently caressing his wounded side. The stiffness from his accumulated hours of sleep skittered away and he awkwardly re-wrapped his ribs with the bandage, swallowing a pain pill along with his antibiotic before he pulled on clean clothes.

Gus Spencer had agreed to meet with him downtown at four p.m. Dean was surprised that he was available on a Saturday afternoon, but apparently Gus was behind the eight-ball on a project and didn't have a day to lose. As he left the motel room, the radio still playing, he noticed that at some point, Aaron Glover had dropped off a stack of clean towels, a two liter of pop, and a bag of potato chips. He kicked them inside the door for later.

October in the Pacific Northwest was rather unforgiving, he realized as he eased down behind the wheel of the Impala. He didn't know what this job entailed, but as long as he didn't have to move too fast or lift too much, he figured he could pull it off. He headed to the address Gus had given him over the phone, slipping the Chevy into a slanted, on-street parking space.

Brinnon was like so many other small towns he'd been to, and been through. With one exception. There were a few people on the street making their way from one store to another, or calling out a greeting from their car, but for the most part, Brinnon's downtown was essentially deserted.

Nearly half a block of buildings at the end of the main drag were nothing but timber and roofs. Scaffolding covered the building fronts, tarps were fitted over roofs that weren't yet complete, and every single wall was missing. Wind whistled through half-finished window frames and sheets of plastic snapped and crackled in the interior spaces.

"What the…" Dean muttered as he made his way closer. "It's like a Tim Burton set."

As he approached the open frame of the first building, he started to call out, but closed his mouth quickly when he heard angry voices several buildings down toward the end of the torn-up block.

"…not my fault that we're at a standstill, here, Jake."

"You're the contractor, Gus! This is _your project_."

"You need someone to blame? I get that. But you better be damn sure you got the right guy."

Dean followed the voices, realizing one of them was that of his potential future boss.

"This town is _dying_, Gus. We need this project finished. We need it finished yesterday."

"Jake, listen to yourself," Gus replied, his voice reminding Dean of Wilford Brimley's.

He half expected to find a rotund man with a Burl Ives mustache when he rounded the corner. He was surprised to find a tall, muscular, Asian man facing off with a familiar face—the blue-eyed doctor from the ER. He stood still, listening, aware that they hadn't yet seen him.

"I couldn't be sorrier about your little girl—"

"This has nothing to do with what happened to Annie."

"But," Gus continued. "We've had walls collapse. Tools go missing. Two guys with broken arms, one guy with a concussion. There was that fire last week, and now, with the guys walking off, threatening to strike—"

"You don't get it," Jake Teller pressed, hands on hips, chin jutting forward in a move Dean was recently familiar with. "My partners and I… we've poured _everything_ into this restoration project. Everything. If this fails—" His eyes darted to the side and caught sight of Dean. He broke off his tirade at Gus, standing straighter. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Dean tossed him a casual, two-fingered salute. "Good to see you, too, Doc."

Gus turned and Dean saw he was more of a Giant Bruce Lee than a Wilford Brimley. "You Dean Winchester?"

"Yes, Sir," Dean nodded, stepping forward, carefully avoiding the scattered bits of wood and tools strewn around their feet. He reached out a hand. Gus shook it firmly.

"I repeat," Jake snapped as Dean straightened up. "What. Are. You. Doing. Here?"

Dean slid cool eyes to meet the doctor's impassive expression. "Interviewing for a job."

"_Here_?"

"Dan Glover from over at the Beachhead sent him," Gus replied.

"Gus, this kid just walked out of my ER yesterday morning," Jake shook his head, gesturing to Dean. "He's in no shape to—"

"Hey," Dean interrupted. "Sorry to be a pain in your ass, Doc, but I think I remember you saying pretty damn clearly that you didn't care what I did when I left."

Jake stepped around Gus, squaring off in front of Dean and turning his sharp eyes into lasers. "You don't want to get messed up in this, kid," he said, his warning carrying the shadow of a threat.

"Sounds to me like you could use all the help you can get," Dean replied, masking his dismay at the realization that the job was for construction work with his intense dislike for the disdain the doctor continued to show him. He didn't care if Gus wanted to pay him to push a boulder up the side of a mountain. He damn sure wasn't about to let this doctor tell him he couldn't do it.

"What kind of help are you going to be with cracked ribs and bruises three layers deep?" Jake shot back.

Dean shot his eyes to Gus. "I can handle it."

"You sure, kid?" Gus replied. "I _could _use the help, that's true, but I don't want anyone else getting hurt."

"I can handle it," he repeated.

"My ass," Jake muttered. "You can't even handle—"

Dean sensed the motion before he actually saw it. Jake Teller had lifted his hand, intent, it seemed, to push against his shoulder and knock him off balance. Quick as lightning, Dean brought up his hand and caught the doctor's wrist mid-reach before he ever touched Dean. Squeezing hard enough to make the man's fingers tingle, but not too hard that he would damage him, Dean blinked slowly, making sure to capture the doctor's eyes with his.

"You were saying?"

Jake jerked his hand back and Dean released it before he was unable to maintain the mask of control that disguised his discomfort.

"You're right," Jake said, his voice glacier-cold. "I don't care what you do. And when you get hurt, I'll make damn sure someone else has the chore of putting the pieces back together."

He looked at Gus, his eyes venomous. "I'm calling a meeting tomorrow, Gus. The four partners. I don't want to, but we need a contractor to finish this project, regardless of a few random accidents. If you can't do it, we'll find someone who will."

With that, he pushed through a flapping piece of ragged plastic and stormed from the ramshackle building. Dean watched him go, then turned to look at Gus, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

"Dude—"

Gus held up a hand. "I know. He's a dick."

"Took the words right outta my mouth."

"So, is what he said true?"

"Which part?" Dean hedged.

"Were you in the ER yesterday?"

Dean pressed his lips together, narrowing his eyes. "Yes," he confessed finally, watching Gus's face fall. "But, I _can_ handle it," he asserted. "And… I really need the money."

"Nothing more motivating than desperation," Gus nodded. After a beat, he stuck out his hand. "You're hired. Be here Monday morning at nine—"

A cacophonous crash shook the ground beneath them, interrupting Gus's instructions. Exchanging a baffled glance with Gus, Dean turned and headed out of the building the same way Jake Teller had gone. The ground shook again and he felt Gus's hand at his shoulder, pushing him away from the building.

"Look out!"

Around them, scaffolding began to teeter and fall, collapsing on itself and against the building like a badly constructed house of cards. Dean went to his knees behind a large SUV parked on the street, Gus crouching beside him, both with their arms wrapped around their heads for protection. When the noise stopped, they looked up, coughing from the construction dust that billowed around them.

Dean braced his side as it sang out against the pain of his coughs. He was unable to speak, didn't look at Gus, simply stayed crouched until he could pull in a shallow breath without his vision going white.

"Christ on a cracker," Gus breathed as he stood up, surveying the damage to his construction site. "The entire scaffolding is down."

A screech of horror caught Dean's attention and he used the bumper of the SUV to push himself to his feet. They both looked toward the opposite end of the block, near where Dean had parked the Impala. A woman stood at the edge of the fallen scaffolding, pointing.

"Someone's under there! I see a hand! There's a hand!"

"Oh, God, no…" Gus breathed, breaking into a run.

Dean followed, slowly, walking an effort in coordination at this point. He staggered a bit between a dust and debris-covered car and a leafless tree planted along the sidewalk, reaching out for balance. He held his side, biting the inside of his lip to keep from whimpering with each step. He saw Gus reach the end of the scaffolding and drop to his knees, reaching for the hand and feeling for a pulse. He knew by the way the older man's shoulder dropped that the person—whoever it was—was dead.

"Gus?" Dean croaked as he reached his new boss.

"It's Jake," Gus whispered in a destroyed voice.

"You sure?" Dean asked, his lungs feeling as though they were suddenly pressed flat.

Gus nodded, his fingers resting on the face of a broken wristwatch still wrapped around the protruding hand. "I'm sure."

Dean sank back into his heels, trying to wrap his mind around the devastation. His instincts were on fire. Something was very wrong here, and everything inside of him screamed that it was _their_ kind of wrong.

"I'll call the police," he said, pulling out his cell phone.

"What the hell am I gonna do?" Gus whispered. "What am I gonna do now…"

www

His leg ached. His skin itched. His stitches throbbed. His ass was numb. His beard was driving him insane. He was desperate for a drink—a _drink_. Not more water. Anymore water and he was going to start sloshing. And he wanted this fucking catheter out. He could feel the damn thing in there.

"Dean," he growled through teeth grit with discomfort, restlessness, and frustration. "Where the _hell_ are you?"

"Quitcher bitchin'," Dean's tired voice pulled his head around. "I'm here."

"Where the hell have you been?" John demanded immediately, then sank inside of himself as Dean stepped into the light.

He looked destroyed. Paler than when he'd seen him yesterday, smudges of grayish dust on his coat, hands, and across his forehead. His body shook slightly as he made his way into the room. He set a white paper bag on the table next to John's bed, grease splotches exposing the contents as burgers and fries. John watched as he reach into the inside pocket of his jacket and removed the journal, setting it next to the bag almost reverently.

"Dean?"

Dean swallowed, his throat bobbing with the effort. He shifted his chin toward John, but his eyes stayed down.

"What is it?" Worry cut an edge around John's words. He wanted to get up, to take Dean by the shoulders. To make him sit down before he fell on his face.

Dean sank into the chair next to John's bed as if his legs had simply disappeared.

"Had me a big day today, Dad."

John turned as far as he could in the bed to face Dean, his hip muscle gasping at the angle.

"Got a job—downtown Brinnon. A construction site."

"Construction? Dean, you aren't in any shape to—"

"The site has had a bunch of shit happen. Random shit—like accidents and fires and tools missing. While I was there," Dean continued, his eyes on the floor, the thumb of his left hand rubbing concentric circles in the palm of his right. "The scaffolding collapsed."

John gaped, waiting for Dean to go on. Dean pressed his lips together, folding his forehead in a line of worry before he finally looked up at John.

"The doctor from the ER—the one that fixed me up—he was, uh… caught under it."

"Holy shit."

"He's dead, Dad."

"What the hell was he doing there?"

Dean looked back down at his hands. "Well, turns out he and three other people are—well, _were_—the financial backers for this construction site."

John narrowed his eyes. "Dean… this doctor—"

"Teller," Dean supplied, not looking up.

"This Dr. Teller… didn't you say that his kid was the first one killed by the Kappa?"

Dean nodded, lifting only his eyes. "I'll give you one guess who the other three partners are."

John rubbed his face. "Son of a bitch." He dropped his head back against the pillows. "Son. Of. A. Bitch."

Dean took a slow, shaky breath. "Yeah. Got the names from my new boss."

John looked over at his son, took in his wrecked appearance. He looked back at his leg, shifted slightly just to test the extent of the pain, grimacing as it tweaked hard inside the cast.

"Well, this sure ain't good."

"Tell me about it," Dean sighed. "Oh, here," he said, pulling a razor from his jacket pocket and standing up, slowly, as if he were eighty years old.

John lifted an eyebrow at his son. "Where are you going?"

"Back to the motel," Dean said, grimacing. "I plan on sleeping for the next twenty-four hours and hope no one gets killed before Monday."

John tilted his head, watching as Dean walked away from the bed as if his legs were spun glass.

"Dean…"

"I'll be back, Dad, don't worry." Dean cast him a heavy look over his shoulder. "But… I got work to do. In more ways than one."

"Dean!" John barked, the authority in his voice stopping his son in his tracks. Dean swayed slightly before turning to face his father. "You're not doing this. Not alone."

They stared at each other in that moment, both keenly feeling the loss of their unity, their balance. It had _worked_ when Sam was there. Sam's innocence gave John a reason, gave Dean a purpose. Sam's drive gave them their heart. Sam's absence took it all away.

Dean held his eyes, then looked at John's suspended leg. "Yeah," he said softly. "I am."

John curled his lips up in a helpless snarl. "Don't…" he curled a hand into a fist. "Don't do anything without checking in first. You stay in contact with me. At all times. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Dean replied automatically, though John felt as though he were speaking to an after-image of his son, a memory burned on the backs of his eyes, not the flesh-and-blood being that was a part of him.

"See ya," Dean said, turning. As he walked from the hospital room, John saw how alone his son really was in the world. And as the door shut behind him, the loneliness was caught inside the room with John, hovering like an unwanted presence.

Jaw clenched in frustration, John hurled his plastic cup filled with ice across the room, and watched with empty and short-lived satisfaction as it splattered against the far wall, liquid darkening the plaster and trickling down in a fan.

* * *

**a/n**: I found that working from an outline is a curious exercise in planning versus creating. In this case, the inmates have taken over the asylum and I'm kind of excited to see how it's going to play out.

I'm working to update every two weeks. Hope you come back for more!

**Playlist**:

_Everything Changes_ by Staind

_Childhood's End_ by Pink Floyd

_Hotel California_ by Eagles

_Nothing Else Matters_ by Metallica

_Faithfully _by Journey


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer/ Spoilers**: See Chapter 1

**a/n**: Thank you all so much for your understanding and well-wishes from the a/n I posted last week. It really did a body good. What I didn't realize, though, was that by posting that note about the delay, and then posting this chapter as "Chapter 3," I made if rather difficult for anyone who commented on the previously posted "Chapter 3" to comment on the REAL Chapter 3. I apologize for that. If you are inclined to let me know you read, and you commented on Chapter 3 previouisly when I posted the a/n, I would love to hear from you via PM or through an annonymous review. Just let me know who you are if you choose to reply annonymously so that I can thank you properlly for your comment. *lesson learned*

Thanks to **ThruTerrysEyes** for donning the cape of Super Friend and giving me the sanity check I needed.

I know I said that the last chapter was a "point A to point B" chapter as if in apology, but as I wrote this I realized… they kinda all are that way. This is a bit of a different type of story, I suppose. If you're an action junkie, you'll be rewarded in Chapters 5 and 6. These next two chapters, however, are more of an attempt to climb inside the characters and look out through their eyes.

I hope you continue to enjoy!

* * *

_The father who would taste the essence of his fatherhood must turn back from the plane of his experience, take with him the fruits of his journey and begin again beside his child, marching step by step over the same old road. _

_~Angelo Patri_

www

The morning air was crisp. His exhale clouded in the air before his face and hung suspended for several seconds before dissipating.

It wasn't cold enough that Dean wanted to burrow deeper into the layers he'd donned, but it didn't make him want to shed any of them either. He made his way to the waiting Impala, palming the crusted edges of sleep from his lashes. He was supposed to report to the job site at nine. A brief glance at the digital clock as he left the motel room told him he had two hours.

Sunday had been a hazy blur of distorted dreams that seemed to fold around him like memories and pangs of pain that shivered through him at alternating intervals. He'd returned to the motel from his father's hospital room Saturday night and had fallen—fully-clothed—into his bed. He hadn't moved for hours.

He'd woken once around noon on Sunday to pee, shuck his jeans, take more pain meds, and return to bed. He couldn't remember having been so tired. His body had raised protest to the thrashing his dreams ensued, but he'd simply stacked pillows against his wounded side, preventing him from rolling over completely. When he opened his eyes again, pale light was bending through a slit in the heavy curtains and the radio he'd kept on for company was offering up a traffic report.

He'd tossed a pillow at it, knocking it from the dresser and eliciting a groan as his stiff body rebelled the sudden movement. A quick shower revealed that sleep hadn't miraculously cured his bruising and cracked ribs, but he did feel steadier, able to nearly draw a full breath without wincing. And he was _starving_. He hadn't gone this long without eating since Sammy had come down with the flu two years ago and Dean had forgotten to buy anything at the store aside from cold medicine and chicken soup.

Dressing had been a study in levels.

Like the level of discomfort he was willing to endure to ensure he was warm enough, had enough motility, and was appropriately armed to walk out of that door when he had no one to watch his back, no orders to follow, and no one to protect. He'd actually stood at the side of the bed, naked but for an Ace bandage around his ribs, staring at the contents of his duffel bag, trying to determine what he should wear.

Ultimately, he'd settled himself with his jeans and boots, the lock-pick and throwing knife secure in their usual places, T-shift and long-sleeved over shirt to hide the box cutter he fashioned to the inside of his left arm, and Sam's gray hooded sweatshirt that he'd taken from his brother at the last minute. He'd only worn it once or twice since Sam left and it still held his brother's musky scent.

Something about this morning, this town, this hunt had him reaching for that garment with a need for security he'd never cop to. Over the hoodie he'd slipped on John's old leather coat that he'd somehow inherited along the way. Thus armed with his family, yet completely alone, Dean headed to the work site, the Impala rumbling happily around him. He pulled over at a diner about ten minutes away from the motel, silently wishing he'd thought about this place on Saturday night.

Walking through the door, Dean was instantly wrapped in welcoming smells of coffee, bacon, and bread. His vision wavered for a moment as hunger grabbed him by the gut.

"Help you?"

Dean pulled his focus on an older, balding man standing with a menu in his age-spotted hands, a red apron lashed to his belly. A plastic name tag fixed to his plaid shirt read _Beau_.

"Yeah," Dean tipped his chin up, surprised at how rough his voice sounded to his own ears. "One, please."

Beau led him past a coffee counter flanked by three men to a booth and Dean slid into the seat that faced the door, putting his back to a window. Without looking at the menu, he ordered a coffee, double stack of pancakes, two eggs, and a side of bacon. Beau nodded and, without writing it down, shuffled around the corner of the counter to the kitchen, visible through a rectangular window positioned behind the counter.

Dean shifted, looking through the outside window at the slowly waking town and turned in to the scattering of voices of them men at the counter.

"You hear they're moving ahead with that project?"

"Be fools not to."

"You think so, do you?"

"Someone needs to get Spencer outta there, put someone in charge knows what t' hell he's doin'."

"Ain't no better contractor 'round these parts 'sides Gus Spencer."

"You're forgettin' me."

"No, I ain't."

"Here's your coffee, Son."

Dean's head jerked around at the last and he looked up at Beau holding a pot of coffee and a mug. Gratefully taking the mug, Dean sipped a bit of the scalding liquid, then nodded toward the counter.

"They regulars?" he asked.

Beau looked over his shoulder to the trio of men sitting at the counter, shoulder-to-shoulder, each looking at a different section of the paper, grumbling towards their coffee as they spoke with each other.

He nodded. "Been comin' in here for about nigh on twenty years now. Always got something to complain about."

"That construction site's big news, huh?" Dean pressed before the man could walk away.

Beau lifted a wiry gray eyebrow, looking down at Dean over a nose that had outgrown his face. "Son, we got less than a thousand people in all of Jefferson County. In the last six weeks, just about every life that goddamn site has touched has been ruined." He paused, shaking his head sadly. "Haven't seen the town this shaken up since—"

"Beau! You gonna jabber all day or you gonna get us some coffee!"

Dean glanced from Beau to the eldest of the three counter-sitters.

"I'll be over there when I'm good and ready, Lawson."

Lawson turned to more fully face Beau and Dean got a good look at him. Paunchy, a faded button-down shirt stretched taut at the buttons, graying comb-over sitting atop a ruddy complexion, the man looked like someone who was too friendly with the view from behind his desk and too familiar with the inside of a whiskey bottle.

"Who you talkin' to?"

Beau didn't move and Dean felt the elder man's eyes on his face. In turn, he leveled his gaze on Lawson's jowly countenance.

"I believe the term is _customer_," Beau replied. "Not that you'd be familiar with it."

Dean merely lifted a brow as Lawson's companions snickered into their coffee cups. Grumbling something unintelligible under his breath, Lawson turned back to the counter and Dean brought his eyes back up to meet Beau's.

"You were saying?" Dean prompted.

Beau simply shook his head. "'Bout twenty years ago, this town got real tore up. Thought we'd all put it past us, but…" The man sighed expressively, his shoulders bowing. "Losing those kids—"

"Lawson," Dean muttered suddenly. "Wasn't that… the name of one of the kids?"

Beau quirked his head to the side. "Cody," he nodded, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Joe's grandson."

Dean nodded toward the counter trio. "His son one of the partners in that construction project?"

Beau lifted his brow at Dean this time. "You're awfully well-informed for someone just passing through."

Dean leaned back against the booth. "Never said I was just passing through."

"You ain't from 'round here," Beau said, shaking his head once, decisively. "That much I know."

Dean looked down, pressing his lips together. "My Dad's up at St. Luke's. Busted leg. Gonna be around here for a little while." He finished his coffee and set the empty mug down, then looked up at Beau.

"You're that kid that Gus hired—the one that was with him when Jake Teller…"

Dean nodded.

"You see what happened?" Beau pressed.

"Just that the whole scaffolding collapsed," Dean replied.

Beau rubbed a hand over his face. "Not ready to see this again. Just not ready," he muttered, then turned from the table without offering more information. "I'll bring you more coffee with your food."

Dean watched him go, then slid his eyes back to the elder Mr. Lawson. He wasn't surprised to see the narrow slits of the man's eyes looking back at him. Beau brought him his food and more coffee and at some point a radio was turned on over the speakers and Patsy Cline's _Crazy_ drifted through the air turning the diner into a flashback of an old 1950's movie.

When he'd finished his breakfast, Dean stood, dropped some cash on the table, and nodded at Beau as he left. The men at the counter watched him make his way to the door. Dean didn't bother looking back. He was too busy trying to figure out how he was going to find money for more food and gas. He had ten dollars stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. John's choice to use a limited credit card was arrogant and irritating. They'd never been stuck in one place this long without a plan before. He could head to the next town over and use a different fake credit card for some supplies if he got really desperate, but Dean felt himself snarling as he started up the Impala.

"Half a tank, baby," he whispered to her. "Make it last, okay?"

It didn't take long to get to the work site, and Dean parked down the block from the destruction. Exiting the car, he saw that though he was early, he wasn't the first one there. Moving slowly up the walk toward the small group of men, Dean felt a disturbing gap along his waistband where the comfortable weight of his gun should have been.

"Mornin'," he greeted them, nodding, his face open and friendly.

A man turned to face him, his jeans and cowboy boots a bit too bright to be authentic, his long-sleeved shirt starched so crisply that Dean could see the flakes of white along the seams. He was younger and thinner, but his face held the same distrust and ruddy complexion of the man at the bar.

Dean tipped his chin up. "Mr. Lawson?"

"Yeah, who the hell'er you?"

Dean slid his eyes to take in the group of dour faces. "Names Dean Winchester," he said. "Just hired on with Gus this weekend."

"You…" Lawson glanced at his companions, then back at Dean. "You came to work?"

"Yes, Sir," Dean replied.

A murmur rippled through the silent group and Dean shifted his weight, feeling inexplicably ready for a fight.

"Cole," Lawson called over his shoulder without taking his eyes off of Dean. "This kid says he's here to work for Gus."

"So I heard," replied an oddly high-pitched voice.

A man stepped out from the group of people and walked over to stand in front of Dean. Unable to stop himself, Dean felt a smirk twist his lips as he regarded the other man. _Hello, Biff Tannen_, he found himself thinking. The man in front of him resembled the barrel-chested nemesis of Marty McFly in almost every way from the bulbous nose to the high-and-tight sandy-colored hair.

"Where's your tool belt, son?" Cole sneered, running an index finger along the lapel of Dean's leather jacket.

"Okay, listen," Dean lifted his hands, palm-out, "I've obviously come at a bad time—"

"No, no," Cole shook his head, his generous lips pushed out in a pout. "Not bad at all, considering we got no scaffolding, all our workers bailed, and our contractor is MIA."

"I'm right here," Gus' voice carried to them from inside the building. "If you'd bothered to come in, you'da found me about an hour ago."

Cole turned along with the group of men to face the loosely fastened heavy plastic that covered the as-yet-installed wall of the building face. Gus stepped through and Dean saw immediately that the man was exhausted. His features carefully blank, Gus stepped forward, extending a hand at the three men centered in the cluster of men.

"Matt," he nodded, shaking the younger Lawson's hand. "Jim, Terry," he moved along the trio, "good of you to come by. I'm so sorry it had to be under such shitty circumstances," he glanced down, then back up, "again."

Dean took note of the names. He knew from Beau that Cody Lawson's father had been part of the partners heading up the building project. He looked at Matt Lawson, trying to see in the sour face of the man a person who had recently lost a child. Trying to see the grief he'd expect to see. James Sutcliff and Teresa Bowing had been the other two victims. Shifting his eyes to the men named Jim and Terry, Dean saw etched in the tight lines around their eyes, the low draw of their mouths, the purple smudges beneath their eyes the evidence that life as they knew it was over.

"What the hell, Gus?" Terry demanded in a choked voice. "When is this going to end?"

"When we get this building done," Gus replied with certainty. "These the guys you promised me?"

"My brother, Cole," Matt Lawson motioned to the man Dean had mentally dubbed _Biff Tannen_. Dean met the man's beady-eyed stare and waggled his fingers as he walked away. "And he brought eight guys he knew from some surrounding towns."

Gus nodded at Cole and the other men gratefully. "Glad to have you. Listen, I have a crew coming today to reassemble the scaffolding. We'll be able to start construction again in a day or two. You think you can come back?"

The men behind Cole nodded and spoke assent. Cole, however, turned glowering eyes toward Dean. "What about the _gaijin_?"

Dean frowned at the foreign word, but Gus just chuckled and shook his head. Without glancing at Dean, he said, "He's with me."

As Dean watched, the men began to file away, Cole letting a lingering look rest on Dean for a moment before joining his friends. The trio of partners paused a minute and Terry spoke again.

"Gus, this is the last crew," he said, his throat working convulsively. "Everyone else has walked off—they're too afraid. Especially now, after Jake—"

"I understand," Gus nodded, resting a hand on Terry's shoulder. "And we _will_ finish this job. I promise you."

"You had better," Matt growled as he turned away, his starched shirt glittering in the morning sun. "Your ass is on the line just like ours, Spencer."

Gus dropped his hand from Terry's shoulder and rolled his teeth against his lips, regarding Matt silently. The partners nodded at Gus, then turned away getting into separate cars. Dean waited until they'd pulled away from the curb before approaching Gus.

"Thanks," he said.

"Cole Lawson is a bully and an idiot," Gus shook his head, eyes on the dissipating cloud of construction dust lingering from the departed vehicles. "Don't know what he thinks he's gaining by trying to scare off a worker."

"What'd he call me?" Dean asked, turning to follow Gus' gaze.

Gus huffed a quick laugh. "_Gaijin_," he repeated. "Means… stranger. Outsider."

"In what language?"

"Japanese," Gus said, his voice tipping the scales from neutrality to disgust. "My mother is Japanese—there's a lot of our people in these parts. Damn fool thinks he can get on my good side using the language of my mother's people."

They stood in silence for a moment, then Dean turned to face the partially-constructed building.

"Some morning, huh?" he ventured.

"You don't know the half of it," Gus muttered.

Dean tilted his head. "Yeah? What's up?"

Gus looked at him, his dark eyes tight in his brown face. "You gonna run off on me if I show you something… weird?"

Dean bit the inside of his cheek. "Believe me, man," Dean said, an understanding grin relaxing his mouth. "You can't scare me off."

Gus looked at him a moment longer then turned toward the building, motioning with his shoulder. "Follow me."

Dean carefully picked his way across the destruction of scaffolding and tightened his belly muscles as his ribs were jarred by his stumbling steps. He parted the heavy plastic to step into one of the rooms. The sight that met his eyes was jarring, but in some ways, not unexpected.

On the finished ceiling and along the studs that would eventually support outside and interior walls was painted sigils and symbols in black. Some of them Dean recognized, most, though, were foreign to him.

"Wow," he muttered softly, turning and taking them all in.

"It's only this room," Gus said, "but it's everywhere _in_ this room. Even on the floor."

"What… _was_ this room?" Dean asked, looking at Gus. "Before you started the remodel?"

Gus shook his head. "All of these buildings had been abandoned for years. I mean _years_. Once upon a time this room was part of the city jail, but it was more of a holding cell and a couple of offices—old west style. The rest of these buildings were just café's and shops, but they all went out of business about fifteen years ago."

He sighed. "We don't have problems with gangs around here, but…"

"These aren't gang signs, man." Dean grabbed a flap of paper from a sandbag weighing down a light fixture. "You got a pen?"

Gus frowned and handed Dean a marker. "You know what these mean?"

"I don't," Dean said, copying down the symbols as best he could. "But I know someone who might."

He felt Gus' eyes on him, but kept drawing.

"Dan never said what it is you do," Gus revealed.

"I, uh… work with my dad," Dean explained. "Kind of a family business."

"Your dad's in the hospital, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"He get hurt on the job?"

Dean nodded, capping the marker and handing it back to Gus. He watched Gus take it, hesitantly. Before he could say anything further, though, he caught a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye.

"Who's that?"

Gus turned and headed in the direction Dean indicated, Dean close behind. They reached the back wall of the building and pushed the plastic aside. Heading out across the muddy yard toward a slope the reached down to beachhead was a tall, gangly man with waist-length black hair. He paused at the base of a tree and turned to look directly at them.

Dean could see even from this distance an angry red scar running horizontally along the man's right cheek and the odd, unnatural slope of his right eye. He was wearing what looked like buckskin breeches, a red flannel shirt, dark boots and a jacket edged in fringe.

"Aw, dammit," Gus swore, leaning his forearm against a wall brace and curling his hands into a fist.

"You know that guy?"

Gus nodded. "He's harmless," he replied. "Name's Kwaiya. He's a homeless guy, been living around here forever, since he was young."

"Is he…" Dean tried to delicately search for the right word.

"He's… not all there," Gus said, his eyes on the figure still frozen, looking back at them. "But he's not dangerous. I don't really know the whole story. Some people say he was found wandering in the woods by a Quileute man when he was a kid."

"A _what_ man?"

Gus backed away from the opened space as Kwaiya turned from them and continued down the slope toward the water. "Quileute," he repeated. "Local Indian tribe."

Dean nodded, then looked around at the markings. "Could he have done this?"

Gus started to shake his head, then sighed, looking down. "Hell, I don't know. A week ago, I'd have said no way, but now… everything's upside down."

Dean looked at the paper in his hand, wanting to talk to his father, almost afraid of what he might say.

www

He'd never admit to being lonely. Or bored. Or restless.

But John was all three now.

If he could just _do something_ other than sit on his ass it would help. _Pacing _would help. He'd paced a lot when Mary was pregnant. She'd laughed at him, the big, tough soldier nervous over something so natural. But he wasn't in control of the situation that took over her body, changed her, changed _them_. He helped cause it to happen and then was forced to step back, merely an observer.

So, he'd paced. A set amount of steps, measured, specific. The control over that pattern was calming. The set parameters gave him focus and channeled his scattered thoughts into a workable plan. But there would be no pacing with a leg suspended in a canvas sling above his bed.

He'd made them take him off of the infused pain medication yesterday afternoon, switching to pills he could take every four hours, or as needed. He was hell-bent on pushing the _as needed_ out as far as he could. Something about the pain brought about the same focus he'd found when pacing. It forced him to concentrate, to close off the repetitive sounds of a hospital alive with patients. He turned his eyes inward and found the will that had sustained him through wet, jungle nights and the hours of sleeplessness where all he could do was look at the empty side of his bed.

His back had started to spasm sometime in the night, protesting the endless hours in the same position. He'd managed to shift slightly sideways to relieve the pressure on his back and not wrench his leg out of position, but he was only able to hold that pose for a few moments before his trembling limbs gave way. Now, coming on the end of a Monday, he was once again snarling from discomfort—he wouldn't call it _pain_…not yet anyway—and had lost focus three times on the sentence he was scratching into the blank page of his journal.

He glanced at his phone. He could call Dean. See how the kid was doing. He hadn't heard from him since he'd walked out of the room Saturday night, dead on his feet. Swallowing a familiar sensation of anxiety, he picked up the handset of the phone, then paused. A sick sort of shame slipped through him and he dropped the handset back into the cradle.

How could he excuse reaching out to one son and not the other? Sam was just a kid. And John knew better than anyone that kids make hot-headed, stupid choices. It should be the parent's job to only let them go so far before pulling them back to safety. To let them see the other side, but not fall into the abyss.

And yet, he'd let Sam go. Practically _made_ him go. And couldn't bring himself to bring him back.

"Elroy?"

John darted his eyes to the doorway, recognizing Dr. Rice's rich voice before he took in her image.

"Hey, Doc."

"How goes it today?" she asked, stepping around to his suspended leg.

"It goes," he replied softly, dropping his head back against the pillows and riveting his eyes to the paneled ceiling as she opened the Velcro bands on his air cast.

Her hands were quick, sure, soft and he held still as she removed the dressing on his wound, examining her handiwork. "How's the pain?"

"Tolerable."

"Your wound is healing nicely. I imagine in a day or so I'll be able to remove the stitches."

"Fantastic," John sighed dully, not looking away from the ceiling. He felt her begin to re-wrap his leg. "How much longer do I have to be in this thing, Doc?"

He felt her pause, suspected that she was weighing her response with the barely contained hostility he heard behind his own words.

"If you keep progressing as you are," Dr. Rice replied hesitantly, "I'd be inclined to allow you access to a wheelchair for a few hours a day starting… tomorrow, perhaps."

"Tomorrow," John repeated, marking the day in his mind like a deadline.

"You need to be careful, Elroy," Dr. Rice said, gently laying a hand on his forearm.

John tensed under her touch, climbing inside himself, but not pulling away. Without conscious thought, he'd retreated from human contact in the years since Mary died. He chose who, he chose when. Allowing others the privilege of grabbing his attention or offering comfort via touch was not something he was inclined to grant. Reluctantly, he had to admit that included his boys.

Dr. Rice lifted her hand and he heard her sigh.

"I understand you've asked for access to newspapers," she informed him.

At this, John dropped his eyes. "Yes."

"I'll have the last few days brought in to you," she promised, "but I wouldn't expect much. Brinnon's not exactly a Mecca when it comes to the latest news."

"Not looking for much," John said. "Just… something other than… this room."

Dr. Rice nodded. She tilted her head. "Where's your son today?"

John automatically glanced at the empty chair next to his bed. "Not here."

He heard the frown in Dr. Rice's voice when she asked, "Is everything okay, Elroy?"

Sliding his eyes back to her, John tipped his chin down, regarding her with disbelief. "You mean other than the fact that I'm trapped in this fu—" He stopped himself, undone by her outward calm. "… _damn_ bed with my leg in a sling?"

Dr. Rice arched a brow, her mouth quirking to the side. "I'll see what I can do about those newspapers."

John jerked his chin up in a brief nod, watching her leave the room. He picked up the TV controller and scrolled through the limited cable options, not really resting on any one station longer than the few seconds it took for the channel to come into focus. At the end of the cycle of channels, the television automatically shut off and he let it.

Rubbing his hands over his face, feeling the wiry bristle of his overgrown beard, he closed his eyes, trying to breathe out slowly, feeling the frustrated scream beating at the back of his throat. Clenching his jaw, he opened his eyes and reached once more for his journal. Slowly he flipped through the pages, finding solace in the passing of time he saw captured in those words. The moments of truth—proof that he wasn't crazy.

It _hadn't_ been an electrical fire. He _hadn't_ been hallucinating. His wife had been pinned to the ceiling, her belly slashed, her face frozen in terror and fire had taken her, trapping her family in a surreal life on the fringe of reality. She had been killed by a… demon. It still took him a moment to wrap his mind around this fact. He had yet to say it aloud.

He wasn't sure if he could ever tell his boys, tell Dean.

Spirits, werewolves, witches, creatures of myth… he could buy them. He'd seen them. He'd _defeated_ them. But demons? If he allowed himself to believe in _demons_, then he had to open up to the possibility of another side. A balance to the universe. He'd learned in the last eighteen years that the tenuous balance that most of the world took for granted was the only thing that kept humanity from the precipice of the pit.

The idea that there were angels—or some sort of benevolent force—in the universe while so much evil persisted in the world twisted a knot in his heart. The fact that his girl was gone, that his sons had grown up as soldiers and not simply boys, that their lives had never been and would never be safe… he wasn't sure he was ready to accept that fact.

"I see you put that razor to good use."

Dean's voice bending through memory and unexpectedly hitting his ears caused John to tense in surprise, snapping the journal shut, the last few lines jotted there still burned into his brain_: need to check for patterns, signs with the weather, __cattle deaths, temperature fluctuations, electrical storms…_

"Where you been?" John heard himself asking aloud as his heart whispered, _it's good to see you_ chased by _thank God you're all right_.

"Sleepin'… doing some research," Dean replied, leaning a shoulder against the wall as the door to the room closed behind him. John took in the sight of him, jarred by how quiet he seemed. There was an energy within his oldest that he'd come to expect, to count on. This… stillness… wasn't simply a by-product of his wounds.

But John wasn't ready to face the real cause. Not yet.

"Thought you had to work," he replied, his voice gruff, his tone short.

Dean nodded, moving further into the room. He crossed at the foot of John's bed and stopped to stand in front of the window. John watched his son reach out and grasp the slim rod that controlled the motion of the blinds, turning it until the lean light of evening spilled into the room.

"Gus shut down the site for a few days," he replied, his back to John, his voice low and heavy, as if the air used to expel the sound was wet. "Until he can get the scaffolding back up."

"So what about the mon—"

"Don't worry about it, Dad," Dean interrupted, turning to rest his backside against the windowsill.

John saw the purple smudges of exhaustion beneath Dean's eyes as his son regarded him. It still jolted him a bit to see the rough growth of beard frame Dean's lean jaw. _How was Dean old enough to grow a beard?_ he found himself thinking. He'd created a tight universe for the three of them, keeping the boys close, keeping them safe. He was with his sons more than anyone.

And yet… he'd missed so much. So many moments. So much time.

"Poker or pool?" John asked.

Dean's mouth ticked up in a slight, appreciative smile. "Poker, I think," he replied, his hand sliding up to rest carefully along his wounded side. "Even you could kick my ass in pool right now."

John lifted an eyebrow. "I could _always _kick your ass in pool."

"Plus," Dean continued, "if we're going to be here awhile, gotta be careful when I hustle. Only gonna be able to do it once."

John tipped his head down in a nod. "Good point." He stared hard at Dean, watching him work his jaw, the muscle there rippling beneath the taut skin like it was trying to escape. The kid's eyes were directed at him, but they rested on nothing. "So, are you sleeping in the Impala, or what?"

Dean shook his head, bringing his eyes back into focus. "Maxed out Elroy's card," he said. "Bought us two or three days before Glover starts hitting me up for cash."

John looked down at the journal resting on his lap. "I could be out of here by then," he mused.

"Nah, Dad," Dean protested, making his way to the opposite side of the bed. "Even if you're outta here, you're not traveling."

"That's not for you to decide, Son," John snapped.

"Or _you_," Dean shot back. "That doctor said you messed that leg up pretty bad."

"I've had worse."

"Yeah?" Dean challenged. "When?"

John stared at him, saying nothing. There were years of war—here and overseas—that he'd never shared with Dean. And he never would. If he couldn't protect him from the life he'd forced them to lead, then he would at least spare him the details of hunts gone sideways, dark alleys and damp woods, moments when he _knew_ it could very well be his last.

That this time he might not get home to his boys.

"All I'm saying," Dean sighed, his voice softening, "is why push it?"

John tightened his jaw, looking away.

"I got us covered right now, Dad," Dean pressed on. "And… I don't know, there's definitely something hinky going on in this town."

_And you're out there in it. Alone. Unprotected._ His mind clamped down in denial, refusing to acknowledge the truth: Dean could do this. Without him.

"I think it's connected to that building site, too," Dean continued. "I got some sigils I wanted to show you—see if you recognized them."

"Sigils?"

"They were painted around one of the rooms at the building site." Dean dug a rumpled paper from his pocket. "They looked kinda familiar, but…"

John took the paper, turning it to study the different symbols Dean had drawn. "These are for protection," he said, reaching for his journal. He flipped the book open and thumbed through a couple of pages until he found what he was looking for. Setting it open on his lap, he motioned Dean closer. "This and this? Old school charms. Witchcraft."

"Witchcraft?" Dean brought his head up. "You sure?"

John nodded, looking at the last symbol. "I don't recognize this one."

Dean tilted his head. "Could be Quileute."

"Come again?"

Dean rolled his neck, rubbing the muscles at the back with the tips of his fingers. "Local Indian tribe," he said. "I've been looking into them."

"What for?"

"Long story," Dean said, picking up the paper and stuffing it back in his pocket. "Has to do with a homeless guy that I saw at the building site. Gus says he's harmless."

"But you're not so sure?"

Dean lifted a shoulder. "I'm not ready to eliminate any possibility yet. I just know too much weird stuff has happened since they started this building renovation. I thought I'd head out there later tonight, put down some salt lines, run some EMF."

John slid his eyes closed, feeling a loathing he reserved for only himself twist inside. It was a good plan, exactly what he would do. What he _should be doing. _He sensed Dean shift and opened his eyes again, watching as his son moved aside the empty cups and napkins on the bedside table to pick up the razor he'd brought in a few days before.

As John watched, Dean made his way into the bathroom, returning with a small basin filled part-way with water, a towel, and a small can of shaving cream.

"What are you doing?" John asked.

Dean looked at him. "Helping."

"I can shave my own goddamn face," John growled.

Dean merely lifted an eyebrow. "You're doing a bang-up job at it, too."

John looked away.

"C'mon, Dad," Dean sighed, tossing a towel toward John, letting it fall across his chest. "I taught Sammy to shave. His mug is still in one piece."

"You're getting a little too comfortable with me trapped here in this bed," John said.

At that, Dean's head snapped up, surprise evident on his face. "What's that's supposed to mean?"

John leaned his body slightly forward, his eyes hard on his sons face. "I'm not your _brother_, Dean."

Dean set the basin of water on the table and dropped his hands to the side. "Yeah, I noticed," he replied, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

"I am your _father_," John continued, the words _your leader_ implied. "Don't forget that."

Dean's face smoothed out, his eyes emptying of emotion. It had always amazed—and somewhat frightened—John that his kid could do that. Slip a mask neatly into place so that from all outward appearances, nothing got to him. Nothing.

"Yes, Sir," he replied, but John didn't miss the slant of cynicism that hung on the words.

"You heading out there, working this hunt… it's not going to work," John muttered, shaking his head.

"Why the hell not?"

"You've been—" John rolled his lip against his teeth as he searched for the right word, feeling a scary sense of desperation spike behind his eyes. "You've been trained to work in a unit. You… you're not going out there alone." He shook his head decisively, as if that ended the discussion.

"Oh, come on!" Dean exploded, hands motioning to the sides with frustration. "Do you even hear what you're saying, Dad?"

John felt the frustration of being pushed to the side, of not being needed, heat up, his head throbbing with the rage of it. "I am still in charge here, Dean!"

"Nobody said you weren't," Dean exclaimed, his body bent slightly forward with the effort of his words. "But I _am_ out there, Dad. And you know as well as I do that _someone_ summoned that Kappa."

"The Kappa is dead," John snapped.

"Yeah, and so are four kids and one doctor," Dean said. "Someone—or something—is trying to keep that construction site from going forward. And you know as well as I do that it's _our kind_ of something."

John's mind immediately jumped to a list of possibilities: witch, spirit, shaman… _demon_. His heart hammered behind his eyes and his vision swam with the idea of Dean facing down any one of those things without his family to back him.

"You will not hunt alone," John barked. "That's an order."

"No offense?" Dean pulled back, a hand unconsciously pressed to his side. "But it's a shitty order."

John felt his jaw muscles seize up.

"I mean, what the hell are you trying to prove, Dad? That you're strong? That you can take a beating?" Dean's face was tight, his eyes flashing hot and hard. "Well, you win. I get it."

"You _don't _get it!" John bellowed.

"Yes, I do!" Dean yelled back.

"I don't want you out there where I can't protect you," John dropped his voice, anger and fear punching the words through the air even as he worked to bring himself back under control. He knew their words were carrying in some part through the closed door to his room and he wasn't sure how much of their real lives he wanted the hospital staff to hear.

"Oh yeah?" Dean replied, his voice trembling slightly, matching his father's lowered tone. "What about all those times it was just me and Sammy back in some rented house or motel room while you were off playing hero, huh? You weren't exactly protecting me then."

"That's different," John argued.

"Not to me," Dean returned. "Only thing that's changed is that I don't have to be afraid for Sam now."

_But I do,_ John thought. _I'm_ _afraid for both of you every day. All the time._

"I _do_ get it, Dad," Dean said softly. "And… you _are_ in charge here. But you raised me to know what the hell I'm doing. You _made me_ see what's hiding out there. You never once let me pretend it all wasn't real. Hell, you taught me to shoot before I could tie my damn shoes!"

John felt his heart quiver, his eyes on his son's lean face. It didn't matter at the moment if Dean was making a good point. It didn't matter that John had lost in the ability to be in action. It didn't matter that his son was a damn good hunter with instincts that couldn't be taught.

All that mattered was that John was losing control; he felt it slipping through his fisted hands like sand.

"We'll talk about this when I get out of here," John said.

Dean swallowed, his shoulders squaring. John's belly tensed as he braced himself for his son's next words.

"This hunt may not wait for that, Dad."

"Doesn't matter," John shook his head, looking away.

"Matters to me," Dean said, turning away and heading out of the hospital room.

"Dean!"

Dean stopped, but didn't turn back.

"Where are you going?"

Dean didn't say anything for a moment. John waited, hoping somehow he'd gotten through, hoping Dean's trust—the trust John had come to count on and had taken for granted—had returned.

"I don't know," Dean finally sighed, his chin shifting over his shoulder so that John could see his profile. "Kinda making this up as I go along."

"This is what I'm talking about, Son," John said, trying to use his words as a lasso, looping them around his boy so that he could bring him close once more. "You don't have a plan, you don't know your enemy… you don't know what you're _doing_ out there."

Dean turned slightly, his shoulder toward John, his eyes sliding to the side to take in his father. "No, that's your department, right? _You're_ the one who always has a plan. Always knows the next move."

John took a sharp breath, finding the dichotomy of Dean's words of praise and tone of dissention hard to connect in his mind.

"Always _one step ahead_ of the bad guys…" Dean shook his head, looking at the floor. "I guess you're just gonna have to trust that I learned enough from watching you," he finished and continued through the door.

"Dean!" John yelled after him, but the door shut at Dean's back, and John was alone in the room.

"SON OF A BITCH!" he bellowed, thrusting out his arm and sweeping the contents of the bedside table to the floor, the water Dean had provided for shaving splattering across the linoleum. The only thing that survived the carnage was his journal, tucked safely against his side.

His rage was complete. His patience gone.

_Yeah, you had the fuckin' plan, Johnny,_ he mocked himself. _You had the plan to kill that goddamn monster and you ended up in this bed with one kid three states away and another walking wounded. Great _plan_, soldier._

He grabbed the phone from the bed side table and threw it, uncaring that the action would bring nurses and security running. Leaning as far forward as he could, he batted at the mechanism that held his broken leg aloft, knocking the sling free and dropping his leg down to the bed.

The pain was immediate. It rolled through him, lighting his skin on fire with its heat and sending cold shivers through each joint. John bit into his lip, holding the howl in check. He heard foot falls and voices outside his door, but was too focused on getting the hell out of that bed to care.

"Elroy!"

Dr. Rice's outraged voice drew his focus as he continued his efforts to detach himself from the IVs and catheters holding him in place. He glanced once at her face, noted the way her lips thinned out in anger, then dismissed her.

"Stop! Stop this minute!"

"I'm getting outta here, Doc," John panted, the pull of the catheter enough to steal his breath as he tried to rotate toward the side of the bed. His leg pulsed with pain, sending waves of white over his vision.

"The hell you are!" Dr. Rice yelled and John felt her sturdy hands on his arm.

He shook her off and reached once more for the IV in the back of his other hand. From a distance he heard a groan, and it was only when Dr. Rice's hand covered his that he realized it came from him.

"Elroy, stop," she said softer, her voice calmer. He looked up and realized there were three more people in the room with them. "You're not ready."

"My kid's out there, Doc. And he needs me," John said, feeling his voice rumble deep in his chest.

Dr. Rice, tucked her chin, catching his eyes. "You want to be there for your son? Then you listen to me. You follow _my_ orders."

John blinked, wondering how much of their fight she'd heard.

"I can't stay in this bed another day," John shook his head. "I won't."

He hoped the naked pain that shivered through him wasn't exposed on his face as she studied him. He worked to control his breathing. Worked to keep his face still. But his leg… _God, just cut it off…_

"All right," Dr. Rice nodded. "But you do _exactly what I say_ when I say it. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," John replied tightly, then tipped slightly to the side to rest his shoulder against the propped up bed.

Dr. Rice motioned to one of the orderlies. "Can you help pick up Mr. MacGillicuddy's belongings? Andy, get me a wheelchair. With a leg extension."

John felt his body sag as Dr. Rice and another nurse rotated him back onto the bed. He caught Dr. Rice's wrist as she moved to check his leg.

"Thanks, Doc," he said softly.

She arched a brow at him. "Don't make me regret this."

www

He knew exactly what he could buy for ten dollars. He'd always been good at making money stretch when it came to taking care of Sam while John was gone. But as he strode through the doors of the only bar in town and swung his right leg over the leather-covered stool fixed to the floor in front of the darkly-stained wooden counter, he tossed all sense of frugality out the window, ordering two shots of whiskey and a beer chaser.

"What kind? We've got Bud, Heineken…"

"Whatever you have on tap," he nodded at the bartender, glancing around surreptitiously at his surroundings. The bar looked slightly different from the last time he'd visited. The dance floor was empty, though the jukebox played on. Patrons were scattered at various tables and Dean could hear the sweaty smack of billiard balls from somewhere in the back.

It was good that the place was nearly empty. The last thing he really needed was to run into someone he knew in this postage stamp-sized town. Not now. Not until he cooled off.

He could still feel the hot anger seething beneath taut muscles along his face and across his back. His direct encounters with John's authority had previously been tempered by Sam's presence. It had always been easy to say _Yes, Sir_ and move on when Sam was there. Because Sam was so busy fighting back, so busy questioning, so busy needing an explanation, justification for every command that Dean didn't have time to wonder why.

He knew their lives depended on them both obeying John. And it had often times taken every ounce of energy he'd had to both do what John ordered and keep Sam in line at the same time. Now, though, there was no one to protect. And no one to argue.

And John still pushed.

_You can't put a gun in my hand, teach me how to use it, then order me not to pull the trigger, Dad,_ he fumed silently. _I may not have been born for this, but I sure as hell was trained for it._

"Hey again," said a familiar voice over the low drone of Steely Dan.

"_You know there's fire in the hole and nothing left to burn. I'd love to run out now, there's nowhere left to turn…"_

Dean tucked his chin against his shoulder, sliding his eyes to the right to see who'd greeted him. Gus Spencer sat at a table against the wall, fingers lightly spinning a bottle of beer, an empty plate pushed to the side.

"Hey yourself," Dean returned.

Gus's dark eyes skipped to the whiskey shots, then back to Dean. "Rough day?"

Dean dropped his head. "You could say that."

"Feel like some company?"

Dean lifted an eyebrow. It wasn't the invitation he was accustomed to getting—at least not from another guy. He hesitated. Gus lifted a shoulder self-consciously.

"I'm kinda… persona non grata 'round here," he explained. "Might be nice not to eat alone for once."

Weighing the need to fume against his father's stubborn dictatorship against the idea of company, Dean finally tipped his chin up in a nod. "Sure, okay."

He clinked the shot glasses together with his fingers and picked up his mug of beer, heading to Gus' table. He set one of the shot glasses down in front of his new boss, then slid into a seat across from him. They lifted their glasses in unison.

"Cheers," Gus said, tossing back the amber liquid.

Dean nodded, and followed suit, letting the heat of the liquid smack the back of his throat and slide down to sit comfortably in his belly. Gus signaled the bartender.

"Two more."

"Nah, man, I can't," Dean waved him off.

"Sure you can," Gus argued. "I'm buying."

Dean let his mouth relax into a grin. "Well, hell, in that case…"

"So you talk to your friend?" Gus asked as two more shot were set in front of them.

"My friend?" Dean frowned, not following. He could count his friends on one hand and have a few fingers left over.

"About the graffiti."

"Oh, that," Dean nodded. "Yeah—my Dad, actually."

"He know what they are?"

"Protection symbols," Dean said, sipping his beer and watching Gus through hooded eyes.

"Protection? From what?"

Dean settled against the booth and spread one arm across the backrest. He had a choice to make here. Break Rule Number One, _we do what we do and we shut up about it_, or bring Gus in on The Big Secret: _chances are the monster in your closet is real_.

"Could be a number of things… you know anyone that dabbles in witchcraft?"

Gus blinked at him, his almond-shaped eyes wide with surprise. "Witches?"

Dean nodded, his face carefully blank.

Gus grinned, "You're joshin' me."

Dean lifted a shoulder, taking another sip of beer. It always amazed him how many different ways people could find to explain the unexplainable. "Just telling you what they are. Some we couldn't identify."

Gus's grin slipped from his face. He leaned forward, tenting his fingers horizontally around the base of his beer bottle. "There're rumors… of… of witches and… y'know crazy shit like that," he shook his head. "But, y'know that was like… twenty years ago."

Dean licked his lips, weighing the impact of his words.

"Witches? Really?" Gus tried again.

"I'm not saying witches drew those symbols," Dean clarified. "I'm just saying that whoever did knew something about wiccan protection symbols. Trying to protect the site from… something."

"Yeah, but… what? Or… or who?"

Dean looked down at the table. "I'd like to try something. Line the exterior of the building with salt."

"Salt," Gus repeated, blinking at him.

Dean nodded, not offering further explanation.

"What did you say your family business was again?"

Dean opened his mouth, unsure, exactly, what words were going to come out. He was saved from a potentially job-ending explanation when the music from the jukebox screeched to a painful halt in the middle of Joe Walsh's _Those Shoes'_ guitar solo. He and Gus turned to look across the bar. Cole Lawson stood next to the machine facing a slim, dark-haired girl, her raised hand caught in his fist, his face dark with irritation.

"You're coming with me," he said, a note in his marking the girl before him as property.

"Let me go," the girl demanded.

Dean felt his belly tighten and he straightened in his seat. He wasn't sure what was transpiring, but the sight of the over-sized man gripping the waif-like woman ran sideways across his sense of chivalry.

"You're making a scene," Cole growled.

"You think _this _is a scene?" the girl replied, her voice tipping upward to shrill. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

Before anyone in the sparsely-populated bar could move, the girl gripped Cole's shirtfront with her other fist and thrust her knee upward, forcefully making contact with Cole's groin, sending him backwards with a groan and causing Dean and Gus to wince and pull slightly away in unison.

"You don't own me, Cole Lawson," the girl snarled at him, as Cole went to his knees, his hands cupping his wounded member.

"Marissa—" he choked out, trying to catch his breath.

The girl turned away with a flounce of hair and Dean blinked in shocked surprise. Her blue eyes were neon with anger, but he felt them hit him, then slide along his face, down his chest to his hands. She blinked back at him, her full lips parted in surprise.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey," Dean replied, almost sad to find that he now knew her name.

"Didn't think I'd see you again," Marissa said, rolling her bottom lip against her teeth and making her way toward his table.

"Yeah…" Dean replied lamely, unable to kick-start his brain into a serviceably suave response. As Marissa approached their table, Dean saw Cole rise to his feet, his face almost purple with embarrassment and fury. "Hey—" Dean started, sliding from the booth as he reached for the blue-eyed girl.

From the shadows behind Marissa and Cole exploded a blur of motion, and Dean felt a hand on his sleeve. He looked quickly over at Gus, whose eyes were pinned to Cole.

"Wait," Gus said softly.

Marissa, taking in the looks on their faces, turned and all three gaped as Kwaiya stepped up behind Cole and grabbed him around the neck and waist, halting his apparent attack on Marissa. The homeless man's dark eyes were on Marissa, his arms effectively cutting off Cole's oxygen.

"Kwaiya," the bartender said softly, suddenly stepping into the mix and drawing the scarred man's eyes. "It's okay. You can let him go."

"He was going to hurt her," Kwaiya said, his voice a deep rumble.

"We won't let him." The bartender stepped closer to the man, eyes on Cole whose skin was shifting from purple to red, his lips turning an ugly shade of blue as his fingers clawed ineffectually at Kwaiya's arm. "It's okay, big guy. We won't let him hurt her."

Kwaiya seemed to calm at the bartender's voice and released Cole enough so that the man slipped like liquid to the floor, gasping and retching. The bartender laid a gentle hand on Kwaiya's arm.

"You hungry?"

Kwaiya nodded silently, looking over at Marissa, then down at Cole.

"C'mon," the bartender said, tugging slightly on Kwaiya's arm. "I got something for you in the kitchen." He started to lead Kwaiya away from Cole, then glanced over his shoulder. "Gus?"

"I got it," Gus replied, standing and nodding at Marissa as he passed her on his way to Cole. Dean watched as Gus hauled Cole to his feet. "You're gonna be okay," Gus grumbled. "Don't be such a baby about it."

"He was gonna kill me, Gus," Cole rasped.

"Yeah, well, he didn't."

"Freak should be behind bars," Cole continued, rubbing his neck.

Gus just shook his head and turned Cole toward the door. He glanced back at Dean. "Rain check?" he asked.

"You bet," Dean replied, watching them leave.

Someone reset the jukebox and Marissa turned to face Dean. He stared back at her, unsure exactly what had just happened or what to say about it. Marissa's blue eyes pooled with tears and he watched her throat work to keep her emotion in check.

"I," she started, swallowing again. "I, uh, think I kinda lost my ride. Could… um, could you take me home?"

Dean looked at her a moment longer. Taking a breath, he turned to his table, tossed back his second shot of whiskey, and then after a moment's hesitation, downed Gus' as well. Eyes momentarily watering from the hit of liquor, belly warm and muscles loose, he turned back to her.

"Lead the way," he replied.

She sniffed and nodded, heading to the doorway. She paused just outside the bar, but spotted the Impala. Dean grinned at her memory and followed her, unlocking her door before climbing behind the wheel.

With a tight voice she told him which way to go and he pulled out of the parking lot, working to control his breathing. He felt himself twisting up inside, and couldn't separate the rush of an almost-fight from the desire of an almost-lay.

"I thought you had a job," she said softly.

"I did," Dean replied, shifting uncomfortably in the seat. "It, uh… kinda went south."

"That why you're still here?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. My Dad got busted up pretty bad." He worked his lips over his teeth, trying to figure out what to say next.

"You're okay, though?"

Dean tossed her a sideways grin. "I'm always okay," he replied.

"Your face is bruised," Marissa stated flatly.

"Well, I might've gotten banged up a bit," Dean allowed.

She turned slightly, drawing one knee up onto the seat so that she faced him. "You didn't even remember my name, did you?"

"Sure I did." Dean protested a little too quickly. "It's Marissa."

"Uh-huh," she nodded. "I wrote it on a napkin and slid it into your pocket. The name Teller isn't hard to find in the phone book. But I guess if you were just looking for some fun that night… it's no surprise that I didn't hear from you."

Dean groaned inwardly. _Teller_.

"You related to Jake Teller?" he asked.

She looked over at him, surprised. "He's… _was_ my brother. Why?"

Dean closed his eyes briefly. "I kinda knew him," he revealed. "I was… uh… there, y'know when…"

"Oh, God," Marissa whimpered, covering her mouth. "Turn here," she instructed, her voice thick with tears.

"I'm sorry," Dean said softly, wanting to reach out and pull her close, and simultaneously wanting her out of his car and away from his world as quickly as possible.

"Can you… can you just pull over here?" Marissa asked.

Dean did as she requested, noting the fact that they were in a rather well-to-do neighborhood, but not directly in front of any one house. He shoved the gear into park and stared at the dash. After a moment of silence where he wished he'd thought to turn on the radio before pulling out of the parking lot—because it would be awkward now—Marissa turned to him.

"I hated him."

Dean blinked, then looked slowly askance at her. "Your brother?"

"I'm glad he's dead," she said, her tone hollow, her lips trembling.

"You don't mean that," Dean said, looking fully at her porcelain skin glowing in the cast-off beams of the streetlight.

She nodded, but her head shook a bit. "Yeah, I do," she asserted. "He was… evil. Do you know he didn't even cry when they found Annie?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably, trying to face her on the bench seat, but finding his body rebelling the forced flexibility. "Well, everyone deals with grief diff—"

"Bullshit," Marissa spat. "That's just bullshit. He never really cared about her anyway. Not _really_."

"How do you know that?"

Marissa shook her head. "Little ways. Like, how he'd leave her for weeks on end to go to some conference—leave her with me if her mom wasn't around. She's a doctor, too, y'know. He made her grow up so fast, and when she disappeared, _he kept working_."

Dean licked his lips, looking down. "He could have still loved her," he offered lamely, hearing the doubt in his voice. "I mean, she was his kid."

"He didn't love anyone but himself."

"So, you hate him because he didn't love his kid?" Dean asked, catching Marissa's eyes with his own.

"No," she shook her head and he saw those blue eyes—exactly like her brother's, he now realized—pool with tears once more. "I hate him because he ruined my one chance at happiness just because the man I fell in love with wasn't white."

"Oh?" Dean blinked, watching her.

"He was from the Quileute tribe, up north a bit. He was leaving this area—got accepted to Stanford," Marissa sniffed, not catching Dean's wince. "He wanted me to come with him, to get away from this life. To… to just be normal, y'know?"

Dean nodded.

"But Jake said no. He'd been put in charge of my _welfare_," she spat out the word, "when our parents died. He managed to get the dean at Stanford to listen to him—if I left with him, no scholarship."

"So, you stayed," Dean guessed.

Marissa nodded. "What else could I do?"

Dean looked down at his hand, rubbing his silver ring with his fingers in a gesture he'd often caught his father doing when deep in thought. "But… Jake's gone, now…"

"Doesn't matter," Marissa whispered. "I haven't heard from my boyfriend in over a year. I can't… can't find him. I'm free, and now…" Her voice caught on a sob. "I've got nowhere to go."

"I'm sorry, Marissa," Dean turned and before he could catch his breath found himself with an armful of woman. "Wait—wait, Mar—"

"You're not staying around here," Marissa whispered, her whiskey-flavored breath hot against his mouth, her slim body working to fill the space between his and the steering wheel. "You're going to be leaving soon."

Her hands where everywhere, in his hair, along the side of his face, slipping up beneath his layers of shirts. Her mouth found his and he let himself be pulled into her, feeling her tongue sweep the inside of his mouth. His belly loosened, his groin heated up, and he felt himself grow hard as she wiggled into a better angle on his lap.

"Wait," he whispered against her mouth, letting her push his hands away, letting her seal their mouths with desperation.

"Take me with you," Marissa pleaded, her swollen lips against his ear. "Just… take me with you. I can be good to you. I can take care of you."

"Marissa, wait," Dean said, hardening his tone, though every cell in his body cursed him. He caught her wrists gently and held them in a loose grip so as not to hurt her. "You don't want to do this."

"Hell, yes I do," she growled, diving in once more and pulling his tongue into her mouth.

He groaned at the sensation, his hips thrusting upward in a primal, instinctive rush as his body yearned to be close to hers. He wanted for just a moment to lose himself in passion, to give her what she was asking for, to forget obligation and orders, to sink into flesh and thrill at the rush pleasure offered.

He wanted so badly to just _forget_.

Marissa's hand pressed against his ribs and pain cut through his haze with a lightning-quick snap, causing him to inadvertently cry out. Marissa froze at the sound, recognizing pain when she'd been after pleasure.

"What?"

"Get… get off," Dean gasped, pushing weakly at her, needing space suddenly as desperately as he'd wanted escape. His ribs throbbed, beating his pulse behind his eyes with a harsh reminder that the last hunt still dogged his heels while the next hung over his head like a guillotine.

"You okay?" Marissa asked as she disengaged her legs from his lap and landed in a heap on her side of the car. "Did I… hurt you?"

"Got a couple cracked ribs," Dean said through clenched teeth. "Wasn't you."

"I'm… I'm sorry." Marissa leaned forward, hiding her face in her hands. "God, I have to look so stupid to you."

"No," Dean shook his head, resting his hand on the back of her neck. "No, you don't. Listen. Hey, listen to me." He squeezed her neck gently. Marissa peeked up at him. "You don't need a guy to get you out of here. You want to go find your man? Just go."

"What? Just like that?" Marissa sniffed, straightening up. "But… what if he's really gone? What if… what if he _isn't_ gone and he doesn't want me?"

"You gonna find out any of those answers here in Brinnon?" Dean challenged. "Listen, if I've learned anything in this messed up life it's that you gotta go after what you want. Go after it and if you find it, man, you don't let go. No matter what."

Marissa looked at him, as if trying to find a hole in his argument. Dean wasn't sure where his words came from, but he remembered telling his brother something similar when he'd found the acceptance letter to Stanford in Sam's bag. The idea of Sam _not _going to school because of them—because of this life they led—sat like acid in his gut for days before he'd confronted him. He missed the kid like hell, and his whole life was inside out because Sam was gone, but he wouldn't retract those words under threat of torture. He'd meant them then and he meant them now.

"Okay," Marissa said, hesitantly, as if she wasn't sure of an appropriate response to the flurry of words he'd lobed her way. "Okay," she repeated, wiping the tears and smudges of mascara from beneath her eyes. She looked over at him and huffed out a small laugh. "This is never gonna happen, is it?"

Dean grinned. "Doesn't look like it," he sighed. "Just my luck."

Marissa put her hand on the door, then paused. "Y'know… Jake really did deserve what happened to him."

Dean tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"This town is cursed. He knew it and he mocked it. He… _challenged_ it. And I don't care what anyone says about faulty construction… the curse killed him."

Dean's brows met over the bridge of his nose. As he was forming a coherent question, wanting more information from her, she opened the door. "Wait," he protested. "I can actually take you home, you know."

She pointed across the road. "You did."

Leaning quickly across the seat, she pressed her lips to his cheek. "Thanks," she whispered, her eyes catching his in the darkness. "You really are my hero."

Dean felt his lips bounce in a surprised grin, then watched her climb from the car and cross the street. He didn't pull away until she'd climbed the steps to the large porch and disappeared through the ornate front door.

"In another life, Dean," he said to himself. Dragging the gear down to drive, he turned the Impala in a tight circle, heading back to the motel and another night alone.

www

Dr. Rice was true to her word.

The wheelchair had arrived Monday night, and after some finagling and a fair amount of heavy cursing, John had figured out how to get from his bed to the chair with the leg extension lifted. The best part had been no more catheter.

He was amazed at the difference in pain levels just being in the chair caused. He'd tried to tough it out for the first transition, but after that, he'd remembered to time movement from the bed to the chair with his next dose of pain meds. Dean had called Tuesday morning, but their conversation had been brief and stilted, mainly due to the fact that he gave the kid no safety zone.

Dean had resorted to his usual _Yes, Sir _and bullet-like report of his daily activities. He'd yet to start work at the construction site, and while John felt the undercurrent of tension riding Dean's voice like a wave at the thought of another day without income, he was relieved that the kid had a little more time to heal before getting down to business. He'd informed John on Tuesday that he was heading to a town called Sequim, about a half-hour away.

"_I can use Dwayne Hick's card to get some gas and supplies. We picked that up out of the PO Box before we left for Arizona. It's got plenty of room on it,"_ Dean had said.

"How did you know I got that?" John asked, frowning into the phone. He always retrieved the mail and it was on a need-to-know basis only that he'd informed the boys what he'd brought back.

"_Dad, I've been alone for like three days now,"_ Dean replied tiredly. _"I got plenty of time to find your secret stashes."_

"You don't need to be looking around in my truck, Son," John bit out.

"_Think maybe it's time you started trusting me a little more?"_ Dean asked, then hung up saying he'd be by to visit later.

John had woken from a late afternoon nap to see that Dean had indeed been by, but he hadn't stayed. A bag of items including pencils for the journal, red licorice, a _Road and Track_ magazine, and a bag of peanut M&Ms sat next to a note saying that Dean would call him tomorrow. He expected to go back to work on Thursday and wanted to check out the site to see if the salt lines had made a difference.

…_I fixed the EMF. Sam left a few tools and some ideas for why it wasn't working in the trunk of the Impala. Turns out the kid's not so bad with electronics, even though you get him around a car engine and he turns into a girl. I'm going to take it over to the site tomorrow night when the scaffolding people clear out…_

John balled up the note and started to throw it across the room before he thought better of his actions. A nurse finding that… no way to really explain EMF to a civilian. He reached for the foil packet of pain pills and swallowed two before taking a breath and reaching for the arms of the wheelchair. Sweat broke out on his brow and the cold shiver of pain worked its way up to his hip socket, settling comfortably there until he was situated in the chair, his broken leg positioned in the extension.

Wheeling himself out to the nurse's station, his eyes found the red-headed nurse he'd been building a rapport with.

"Hey, Luce," John called, drawing the girl's green eyes. "Need to talk to you a minute."

"Why're you out of bed? And why didn't you call for help?" Lucy stood quickly and moved around the desk.

"Who do I have to sleep with to get a wheelchair to go?" John said, looking up at the young nurse through his lashes.

"Elroy—"

"Ah, I told you," he interrupted. "Call me John. Never did care for Elroy much."

"You're not leaving." Lucy shook her head.

"Listen," John dropped his voice and his chin, compelling her to lean close to hear him. "If I could walk outta here, I'da signed out AMA two days ago. But this leg isn't working with me. So I need crutches or a wheelchair or something, but I _am_ leaving."

"John," Lucy crouched low so that she looked up into his eyes. She laid a hand on his forearm. "Think about what you're saying. You had a very bad break—"

"I know exactly what I'm saying," John said. "You have until tomorrow. If you or Dr. Rice can't figure out a way to get me one of these things to go, I'll call my kid and he'll pick me up. We'll figure it out on our own."

Leaving Lucy to gape after him, John wheeled himself back to his room. It took a bit of adjustment and some odd angles, but he made his way into the bathroom, standing in front of the sink with his leg propped onto the seat of the wheelchair to keep it elevated as much as possible. Turning on the water and letting it heat up until it steamed, John regarded himself in the mirror.

His dark eyes looked hollow, shadows ghosting the undersides. His cheeks had thinned out until he could see the bones bending the skin ever so slightly. Using the straight razor Dean had brought him, he trimmed up the edges of his wild, wiry beard until the hair clutched at the frame of his jaw line. Foaming up a lather in the palm of his hand, he spread the white cream over his lower face, then running the blade beneath the hot water to clean off the excess hair, he lifted it to his face and slid the razor slowly down the side of his cheek.

Stroke after stroke lifted away hair and with it the heaviness he'd been carrying with him since the night Sam had left them. Watching his youngest walk out on them, John's harsh words of _don't you think about coming back_ still hanging in the air around them all like anvils ready to fall, had pressed down on him with a weight he'd not felt since Mary had died.

He'd tried to drink the weight away. He'd tried to work it away. He'd tried to let the job take him, wanting with some perverse sense of right and wrong to be erased by the world of darkness that had turned him into the man he was. All he'd done was make himself heavier.

And through every step, every hunt, every empty bottle, every wicked morning after, Dean had been there. Standing next to him, in front of him, behind him. Standing where he'd needed to stand so that he could catch his father when—not _if, _but _when_—he fell.

And now Dean was out there, alone, looking for a solution to a hunt they shouldn't even have been a part of. And John had a mission. He scraped his face clean, splashing the steaming water on his flesh to remove the shaving cream. Patting his cheeks dry with a nearby towel, John looked at himself once more, finally recognizing someone in that reflection.

Lucy had listened to him. Either that, or Dr. Rice had finally tired of his displays of anger. He was informed on Wednesday morning that he'd be free to go as long as he returned every other day for physical therapy, and stayed off his leg for another four weeks. He'd called Dean, waking him.

"Late night?"

"_Kinda," _Dean yawned. _"Went to the bar, cleaned out the townies in about three hands of Texas Hold 'Em."_

"Thought you said you had to be careful when you played," John frowned into the phone.

"_I was careful,_" Dean said, grunting. John surmised he was sitting up; the tension in his son's voice increased through the next few sentences. _"Just 'cause I got supplies over at Sequim doesn't mean I didn't need cash quicker than Gus could pay me."_

"That motel owner giving you a rough time?" John asked, his mind circling through ways to get Dan Glover to back off.

"_Hey, he's got a kid to feed, Dad," _Dean replied. _"Not his job to carry us."_

"Never said it was," John replied, cringing inwardly that all of his conversations with Dean seemed to go down this way. _Dammit, boy, _he sighed rubbing his eyes. _We just need a break, you and me._

"_You okay?"_ Dean asked, and John heard him suck in a quick breath of air.

"Yeah, you?"

"_Nothing a hot shower won't fix,"_ Dean replied.

John was about to tell Dean that he'd been cleared to leave and needed a ride when Dean spoke up again.

"_Hey, Dad, it's been a long few days… if you're okay, I'm gonna go grab a bite to eat. I'll catcha later."_

"Yeah, sure, Son. Watch out for yourself," John said, clearing his throat when he heard Dean's extension click. Paging Nurse Lucy once more he asked a favor.

"Any way one of your off-duty ambulance drivers could give me a ride?"

Armed with antibiotics and pain meds, John hitched a ride in an ambulance, knowing the insurance for his hospital stay was going to come after poor Elroy MacGillicuddy with both barrels. When he eased into the wheelchair from the back of the ambulance, he saw Dan Glover and his boy, Aaron, standing in the doorway of the manager's office. He lifted a hand in a wave as the driver set his bag on his lap.

"Thanks, man," John nodded at the driver.

"No problem," the driver replied, looking up at Dan Glover. "You here to give him a hand?"

Dan looked startled for a moment, then quickly recovered. "Yes, I can do that, sure," he nodded.

Aaron scampered over to John. "Hi, Sergeant."

"Hi, kid," John replied.

"You back for good?"

"Until this leg heals," John nodded at his left leg.

"Need some help with your bag?" Aaron asked, practically bouncing in his excitement to get to do something.

"Yeah, that'd be great," John smiled.

"I'll just… unlock your room," Dan said, taking the crutches from the ambulance driver, then waving as he turned away.

In one glance of the parking lot, John could see that the Impala was missing.

"You see my son lately?" John asked, wheeling his chair behind Dan.

"Not since this morning," Dan shook his head. "Thought he was going to see you, honestly."

"Let's hope not," John muttered, knowing that surprising Dean might not be high on his Good Ideas list.

Dan unlocked the door and Aaron stepped inside, dropping the bag just inside the door. John saw a fine spray of salt brush away from the threshold of the door at the breath of motion from Aaron's entrance.

"Move on outta the way, Son," Dan grumbled at his son, stepping around behind John's chair to push him through the door way.

"Dad, look at all this stuff," Aaron was saying in wonder.

John winced, unsure what Dean had left behind in what should be a safe zone. _Really not the best idea you've had lately, John_. Dan pushed him completely through the door and then stopped to stare. The first thing John was aware of was the music emanating from somewhere in the two-bedroom suite. The second was that he'd trained his son exceptionally well.

Dean had pinned a map of Washington State on the wall, marking certain areas with thumbtacks and threading those areas together with red yarn. Around the outer edges of the map were photocopies of pictures, articles, excerpts from newspapers, everything he'd amassed over the last several days. To John it was an immediately recognizable pattern and the planning of a skilled hunter. To the Glover's, however, it must've looked like the plotting of a madman.

John forced a laugh. "Man, that kid is always up to something. Probably helping his brother with a term paper. Hey, kid, thanks for your help with the bag. I think I got it from here."

"Is that… that looks like—"

John rotated the wheels counter of each other and turned his chair quickly to face Dan. "It's nothing, I'm sure. Dean's been telling me about this paper his brother is working on. Kid thinks in pictures. Has to map it all out. So, yeah, thanks for your help!"

Dan took one step backwards, reaching for his son's shoulder. "Dean paid me through next week," he said, sounding as if he regretted accepting the money. "You, uh… you need anything, you… you just call the office. I'll set your crutches here," he said, propping the wooden supports inside the door. "C'mon, boy," he tugged Aaron's shoulder.

"Sergeant?" Aaron whispered, his head the only thing visible through the door. "You're planning another mission, ain'tcha?"

John swallowed, then nodded.

"You just let me know," Aaron said, a gap in his front teeth showing as he grinned. "I'm ready to head out when you give the word."

"Thanks, kid," John said, watching as Aaron pulled the door shut.

He rubbed his face, sighing. "I need a drink," he muttered, wheeling himself into the small kitchenette area and opening the fridge. Inside he found half a six-pack of beer, bread, lunch meat, butter, mustard, and milk. A small smile teased John's lips as he closed the fridge and opened the lower cupboard, knowing without looking that he'd find Lucky Charms and Mac'n Cheese.

What surprised him—and gave him a small shudder of relieved pleasure—was the fifth of whiskey two shots shy from full sitting next to the cereal.

"Atta boy," John mumbled, reaching down for the bottle.

Without bothering for a glass, John unscrewed the cap and took a swig. Setting the bottle between his legs he rolled through the living room to get a better look at the map. The door to Dean's bedroom was open and John glanced in, realizing that the music he'd been hearing was coming from that room. He pulled his head back in surprise.

On the spare bed, Dean had laid out what had to be every gun they owned. Below each weapon was a magazine of ammo. He wheeled himself further into the room, hampered by the tight space between the bed and the dresser. The motel had not been set up for wheelchairs.

"Boy, you… you damn well are a soldier, aren't you?" John muttered quietly under the music. Annoyed at the incessant sound, he leaned as far over as he could and gathered the radio closer with the tips of his fingers. As he did so, however, he caught sight of the mirror out of the corner of his eyes.

Scrawled in Dean's blocky handwriting was something of a 'to-do' list. John blinked up at it in surprise, taking in the half-sentences, the hidden meanings. It wasn't like Dean—he'd never needed… _lists_ or notes to keep his thoughts in order, to stay the course.

He'd always just done his job.

"What's going on with you, boy?" John wondered aloud. He tilted his head, looking at the last note. _Check on Sam_. John narrowed his eyes. "You can't hunt if you're head's not in the game, Dean," he muttered.

Reaching once more for the radio, John paused when the unfamiliar voice managed to cut through him, catching him in the solar plexus with meaning.

"_But you always find a way to keep me right here waiting… you always find the words to say to keep me right here waiting… and if you chose to walk away, I'd still be right here waiting…"_

Feeling his lip curl in a snarl, John pulled the radio from the wall, and dropped the now silent box to the floor.

www

Dean had felt Kwaiya's eyes on him since he exited the car, but he took Gus at his word that he was harmless. Still, the dark eyes hovering above the scarred face trained on him had the hairs on the back of Dean's neck at attention.

He'd spent the day driving. The Impala was a gas hog, but she was one of the only places he found peace. The autumn weather had warmed over the last few days and he'd been comfortable with the windows down, filling his still-sore body with some healing breaths.

He'd ended up at the bar, finding it emptier than it had been on Monday. Three beers and a shot of whiskey later, he left, wanting more—wanting to get blind drunk and just forget about this life of his for at least a night—but knowing he had no one to watch his back, no one to haul his ass out of there when he couldn't drive back to whatever he was calling home for the moment. After driving slowly and carefully enough even Sam would have teased him, he'd pulled over at the constructions site—the newly-built scaffolding reflecting the fading sun like a beacon—and retrieved his cell phone.

He'd programmed John's hospital room in the day he'd left his father there. Scrolling down the list he paused at his dad's number, then rolled his lips against his teeth.

_Not yet… wait 'till you have something that's not just a guess_.

He scrolled further until he saw Sam's name and rode out the quick jolt that it gave him. For as much as he complained about having to watch out for his kid brother, for as annoying as Sam's proclivities could be, he missed the hell out of the little bastard. Closing the phone, he stepped out of the Impala, the creak of the door a familiar companion, and found himself caught in the strange net of the big man's stare.

Dean saw Kwaiya standing at the far edge of the construction site as if in the act of guarding the building. He raised a hand in greeting, but Kwaiya didn't move. Nodding to himself, Dean pulled the EMF reader from his jacket pocket and approached the first opening of the building. Stepping through the plastic-covered space between the stud supports, Dean flicked on the meter, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder and locate the figure of the man standing guard.

At first, the reader was silent, and Dean was reassured that the lines of salt he'd spread around the building had done what they were designed to do. He continued further into the empty building, however, his steps taking him across the painted protection symbols. He moved deeper into the building space, his vision hampered as darkness grew outside and shadows thickened inside.

The red lights on the EMF reader stayed dark until he reached the far end of the building. As he parted the heavy plastic that created a make-shift wall, the light bounced, once. Frowning, Dean stepped from the building toward the back where he and Gus had seen Kwaiya run off toward the ocean earlier in the week.

The wind lifted slightly, brushing across his forehead like a caress. Dean moved two steps away from the building, peering into the twilight. The lights on the EMF reader spiked, drawing his eyes and the squeal was startling in the silence.

Dean found his breath coming in short bursts, unaccustomed to feeling fear in these moments. The alcohol's buzz enhanced the feeling of solitude and he shivered in the dark, too aware of his vulnerability for his own comfort.

"Okay, so… salt, good idea," he muttered to himself, turning and sweeping the area around him. The meter continued its squeal until, unexpectedly, it stopped.

The silence jarred him almost as much as the noise had.

"You took care of her."

"Jesus Christ!" Dean exclaimed, stumbling backwards and nearly dropping the small box. He turned toward the building, searching the gathering shadows for the source of the voice.

"You took care of her," the voice repeated.

"Kwaiya?"

"She's a nice girl. Someone needs to be nice to her."

Dean approached the figure, feeling slightly out of his element. The man was taller than Sam, but stooped slightly. His frame was solid, muscular, but his scarred face reminded Dean of a child's countenance.

"Yeah, man," Dean said, tucking the EMF back into his pocket. "I took her home. She's okay."

"Too many sad people," Kwaiya sighed.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "You know what's going on around here, don't you?"

Kwaiya looked past Dean, toward the building and the first room decorated with protection symbols. "Too many sad people," he said again, his voice barely audible.

"Why are they sad?" Dean asked, standing up on his toes to try to get in Kwaiya's line of sight. "Do you know why they are sad?"

Kwaiya's dark eyes met his and for a moment Dean couldn't breathe.

"Be careful," Kwaiya warned. "Be careful."

"I'll—" Dean started, but the big man turned and slipped into the night as silently as if he'd never been there. "—be careful…" Dean finished. He shook his head. "What the hell is going _on_ around here?"

By the time he returned to the motel, he was starving and exhausted and more than a little tense. He knew he should see his father, but didn't know if he had the energy for it. Everything with John took effort these days. Even a simple _how you doin', Dad_ was a chance for a potentially argumentative encounter. It seemed the days when they moved in step, working as a unit, operating as a team, were gone.

And he missed it. Because not only was his world out of whack with Sam gone, his dad was off his game and Dean had neither purpose nor mission. He had to figure both out on his own, and he wasn't sure he knew how to do that.

He thought about calling Sam—just to hear about something other than his own issues. He thought about looking up Marissa to finish what he'd started twice over.

But the part that won out reminded him of a bottle of whiskey and a bed waiting for him back at the motel. He wanted nothing more than to slip into sweet oblivion for the space of a night and rise in the morning to face whatever awaited him.

The silence in the room alerted him to the danger. That radio had been his constant companion for days. The disturbed salt line had him reaching for his gun, drawing it from the small of his back and flicking off the safety as he pointed the barrel through the opened door way. Pushing the door further open with his elbow, his eyes lit on a figure standing, slightly slumped, across the room holding what appeared to be a flashlight.

His first thought was that there was no way Kwaiya had made it from the construction site to his motel room before him. His second was that he really didn't want to have to kill someone in his room on top of everything else he was dealing with.

Pointing the barrel of his .45 at the figure, he growled, his voice low and menacing, "You have exactly two seconds to tell me what the hell you think you're doing here, or I open you up."

The figure shifted, awkwardly, and light from the flashlight slipped across his face.

"Well, I _think_ I'm following your investigation," John replied.

Dean slipped the safety back on. "Dad?"

www

"You got a lot of good intel here, Son," John said, shining the light back on the map Dean had pinned to the wall.

Dean was still gaping at him, his gun lowering by inches. "What the hell?"

"Just not sure where you're heading with it," John continued, shifting on his crutches.

"How… the _hell_ did you get here?"

"Bummed a ride from an ambulance driver," John replied truthfully. "Push that thing over here, will ya? My leg is killing me."

Dean put his gun in his waistband and pushed the wheelchair from the corner of the room over to John, taking the crutches John offered as he sank slowly into the seat with a sigh of relief.

"I couldn't get a close enough look at the map from the chair," he tried to explain.

"Dad," Dean blinked, his mouth opening and closing, silently.

"What? I told you I'd be getting out of there," John said matter-of-factly, watching as Dean crossed to the lower cabinet and opened the door. "It's not in there."

"Where the hell is it?" Dean snapped.

John gestured to the table and the bottle of whiskey he'd set there earlier.

"Why is it so dark in here?" Dean demanded, crossing to the light switch and slapping it into the 'on' position. Nothing happened. "Oh."

"I was gonna call Glover for a bulb, but it was hard enough explaining all this when they helped me in here."

"You let them _in_ here?" Dean said, unscrewing the cap of the whiskey bottle and taking a long pull. He coughed a bit, catching his breath, then drank deeply once more. "What the _hell_, Dad?"

John watched him, an odd mixture of concern and irritation rolling up behind his heart. "Well, I didn't expect you to have our arsenal on display—let alone the schematics of every murder in this county in the last six weeks."

Dean glared at him, crossing the room with the whiskey bottle still gripped in his hand. "You could have called."

John nodded, wheeling himself around to follow Dean's motion. "Yes. You're right. I _should_ have called. But… all I could think about was getting out of there… about you out here and what you were up against."

He watched Dean pick up the radio, frown at it, then toss it on the spare bed. With sure, deft movements he began to reassemble the weapons and roll them up smoothly into a towel. "You don't know _what _I'm up against," he muttered. "Hell, _I_ don't know what I'm up against."

"Which is exactly why you need me," John shot back, feeling off-balance and out of place. He sat in the darkened living room area, facing the lit bedroom where Dean stood looking worn and wary.

"I don't know, Dad." Dean shot him a sideways glance. "Been doing pretty good gathering _intel_ on my own last coupla days."

John bit back his automatic angry retort and took a breath. "Tell me," he ordered.

Dean stopped wrapping up the guns and turned to face him. He seemed to be weighing something inside, but John couldn't reach him, couldn't fathom what it might be. He sat on the edge of the bed he'd obviously been sleeping in and took another drink from the whiskey bottle. John blanked his face, working to keep judgment at bay.

He knew his boy could hold his liquor—and John was the last to talk when it came to drowning sorrows. What troubled him was the fact that Dean seemed _thirsty_. He seemed to want something—anything—to numb whatever it was burning him from the inside out.

"It's all kind of in… pieces. I haven't put the puzzle together yet." Dean hung his head, rolling his neck. John saw his body shudder slightly as left-over pain seemed to slip through him. "The town has some kind of curse on it—something happened around twenty years ago and it marked the town and everyone in it."

Dean lifted his head and John simply nodded, waiting.

"Someone knows about what happened—and whatever it is has to do with the buildings that are currently under construction—and they want people to pay."

"Uh-huh," John said.

Dean narrowed his eyes and took another drink. "There's this guy… he's not a Native American, but he was, uh… was raised by them… he knows something, but… it's like talking to a little kid."

"Anything else?"

"No one's died since I put salt lines around the site… 'course site's been shut down…"

John pushed his lips out, watching Dean watch the floor.

"So, what you're telling me is… you have a whole bunch of guesses," John summarized.

Dean pulled his head up sharply. "No! That'sss not what I'm saying," he slurred, blinking his eyes with effort, as if to clear his vision. "I got the fuckin' EMF to light up like a Chrissmass tree earlier."

"So… you have EMF. Anything else?" John ignored the pang the sight of Dean's eyes searching for focus cut through him.

"The wi-wiccan symbols," Dean pointed out.

"Think, Dean," John snapped. "What else?"

"Hell, I don't know!" Dean yelled, standing up so quickly he swayed, then pushing past John's chair to stalk into the kitchenette area. He thunked the bottle down on the counter and started to step away. Apparently thinking better of it, he lifted the bottle again and drank deeply, dropping the nearly-empty bottle into the sink. "That's what you wanted t'hear, right? That I need y'help?"

John sighed, shaking his head. "No, Dean. I want you to _think about what you've found_."

"Quit pushin' me, Dad," Dean said. "Just… stop pushin' all the damn time." He stumbled away from the sink and faced his bedroom, taking in John's presence between him and a refuge. "I tryin'… You act like I'm two seconds away from leavin'… but I haven't quit yet." Turning away, he headed to the door. "So how 'bout givin' me a fuckin' break?"

_You always find a way, to keep me right here waiting…_

"Dean." John felt panic whip around him at the thought of Dean walking away—he needed more time. He needed time to learn how not to hold on so tightly.

"I need a minute to fuckin' think," Dean said, his voice slow and thick with alcohol. Enough so that John knew he'd started long before the shots John had witnessed that evening.

"Do not walk out of this room."

Dean leaned his forehead against the door, his palms flatted on the wooden surface. "Or what?" he asked softly.

"What?" John asked, confused.

"Or what, Dad?" Dean repeated, his voice still muffled by his proximity to the door. "I walk out, I shouldn't come back?"

John closed his eyes briefly. "No, Son. You walk out you could get hurt, condition you're in."

"Somethin' you should be familiar with," Dean said, rolling his head along the door until he'd rotated his body, his back to the door, his eyes on the middle distance between himself and John. "Guess turn-about's fair play, huh?"

"Dean," John started, a frown digging a heavy crease into his forehead as he watched Dean slide down the door to sit in a heap, his legs sprawled out before him.

"He's just a kid, Dad," Dean said, his words choked with emotion and unresolved anger. "You made this our war… but you never asked us if we wanted to fight it."

John felt his throat close as he watched his son struggle to find words.

"It was always just what I was supposed to do, y'know? Watch out f' Sammy. Can't… can't remember a time when I didn't wanta… wanta _be_ you."

John closed his eyes, looking down into his lap.

"But Sam… he's just trying to figure it out. Just wants to figure it out… and you couldn't even let him do that."

"That's not true, Son."

"If you say so, Sir," Dean sighed.

"I just want you and your brother to… to be safe," John tried, moments of near-misses and open wounds of his boys—_his boys—_flashing before his eyes. "I never… _wanted_ this life."

Dean blinked up at him, his eyes hooded and blood-shot. His lips barely moving, he whispered, "Yeah, well… we're all stuck with it." With that, John watched Dean's body sag, sliding sideways until his shoulder met the wall and the liquor did the job he'd apparently wanted it to do.

"Ah, Dean," John shook his head, swallowing.

Wheeling his chair close to his son, he reached down and tugged on his shoulder. Dean's head slid limply to the side. There was no way John was moving him, not stuck in the wheelchair. And he could barely maneuver himself on the crutches, let alone his son's dead weight.

"All right," he sighed. "All right, then." He wasn't going to leave his kid in a heap on the floor to sleep off a drunk he'd so desperately needed.

He grabbed the jacket Dean had shucked soon after entering the room. Shifting carefully from the chair, John lowered himself to the ground, wincing as his leg was jarred with the impact of the floor. The Velcro air-cast held tightly to the bandages wrapping around his wound and kept the bones and the screws holding them in place immobilized, but he still felt each movement, each flinch.

Scooting backwards on his rear, using his hands as leverage, he maneuvered himself next to Dean. Reaching out, he gathered his son close, pulling Dean's head onto his lap—careful of his son's wounded side—and covered him with the jacket. Leaning his head back against the wall, John rested his hand on the side of Dean's face, feeling the warmth there, his kid's breath against the tips of his fingers.

They would both be stiff and sore in the morning—and he wasn't sure how his leg would react to not being elevated for so long—but John wasn't leaving. They had a fight ahead of them, and it was big enough it was going to take a focused effort to figure out what was going on.

But for tonight, he wasn't a hunter, or a soldier. He wasn't avenging the death of his lover or searching for a reason she was taken from him. He was simply a dad holding onto his son through a storm. He ran a finger along Dean's hairline, following the path of his ear, listening to Dean's heavy breathing.

"Sleep it off, Son," John whispered. "I'll be here when you wake up."

* * *

**a/n**: Thanks for reading! As I said, action is still to come. Have to do a bit setting up the mystery, right? Hope you come back for more.

Thanks again to those good friends who are willing to check my thinking, my grammar, and my homophone usage: **Terry, EFW**, and **SJ**. If every person had such a trinity, insecurities would be minor.

**Playlist**:

_Fire in the Hole_ by Steely Dan

_Those Shoes_ by Eagles

_Right Here_ by Staind


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer/ Spoilers**: See Chapter 1

**a/n**: Thanks as always to **ThruTerrysEyes**. _Is maith an scáthán súil charad. __Or, __a true friend's eye is a good mirror__._

I'm working through review replies tonight; I'm sorry for the long wait. I decided you'd rather me post the chapter as soon as it was done, than reply to the reviews first. Thank you all so much for your comments!! You keep me going.

I wrote a story awhile back called "Suffocate," and in the writing of that story (thanks to the keen eye of K. Hanna Korossy), I learned that no matter how clear the picture in my head, there are times that schematics are necessary when attempting clarity in storytelling. This was definitely a schematic-necessary chapter. Also as I wrote, I felt the anticipation of what's to happen in Chapters 5 and 6 roll up tightly inside of me, so if life permits, I'm going to try to get at least one more chapter out before Christmas. However, I make no guarantees. *grin*

I hope you continue to enjoy!

* * *

_Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. _

_~Booker T. Washington_

www

He stepped into the shower, the dry fiberglass of the tub floor beneath his feet cool and smooth. Rotating the handle above the bathtub faucet from blue to red, he let the cold water splash across his bare feet, taking in the shock of temperature. Before the water could warm, he pulled the shower stem, needing that same shock blasted across his bare chest, shooting down the back of his neck, covering his back with still-frigid liquid.

Dean gasped automatically, his skin breaking out in tight shivers as his body pulled close in protection from the cold. He lifted his face to the water, letting the tremors of sensation roll through him as the water slowly adjusted and heated up. It beat against his closed lids and ran across the planes of his face to fill his ears and muffle any ambient noise.

He'd woken up in his father's arms this morning.

There was no way for his brain to compute that fact from surreal wonder into actual reality. He literally couldn't remember a time when John had held him for any other reason than anger or desperation. The last time he recalled John actually _touching_ him was after his near-drowning in the Arizona flash-flood a month ago.

_What the hell was I thinking?_

He _hadn't_ been thinking that much was certain. He'd been so wrapped up in what he was feeling, drowning in it, that he hadn't thought through the ramifications of showing such need, such weakness to his father. The unexpected sight of John in their motel room had sent him spinning and he'd ricocheted so quickly from _what am I supposed to do_ to _give me an order_ the only solution he could deal with was oblivion.

He turned, his feet suctioned at the arches to the floor of the tub, and allowed the water to rumble against his stiff neck, hoping its heated fingers would miraculously kneed the aches from his back. He could still feel his father's hand there, at his back, helping him roll from his recumbent position to sit, blinking, wide-eyed and uncertain.

Memories of John in times of fatherly compassion always included Sam. It was ironic, really. Sam and his dad were consistently at odds from the time Sam turned thirteen and decided he didn't approve of their father's choices, but was too young and powerless to do anything about it. However, all Dean could remember of seeing John act like a _dad_… like the dad kids imagine when they picture the ideal family… involved Sam.

Sam in danger. Sam in need. Sam gripped with a nightmare. Sam asking about Mom. Sam, Sam, Sam…

Dean reached up to finger the tender muscles at his neck. His head had been propped up on John's thigh, his face turned toward his father's feet, his body twisted slightly, putting a strange pressure on his still-healing ribs. The first thing he'd been aware of as he'd slipped slowly through increasing levels of light to full wakefulness was the weight of a limb across his upper chest—avoiding the cracked ribs, but restricting his breathing ever-so-slightly.

He'd felt his own heart bounce against that weight and had tried desperately to remember who he'd climbed into bed with the night before. The scent was what jerked him from numb confusion to baffled awareness. His father's scent was unique—even after days wrapped in the industrial clean of a hospital the aroma of gunpowder, leather, and whiskey clung to John's skin like a memory.

Dean tipped his head back, letting the now-steaming water fill the hollows of his eyes and skip over his pursed lips as gravity pulled it down his body. Only two things had stopped him from launching up and away from the startling proximity of his father: contact with the floor reminding him of his efforts to escape the night before and the resulting stiffness in his body.

"Dean!"

He jerked in surprise, slipping on the now-saturated floor, and caught his balance with a hand slapped flat against the tiled wall. "Yeah!"

"We're burning daylight!" His father's voice was muffled, slightly indistinct, coming from the living room, not yet breeching the unspoken sanctity of Dean's room, and sounded… typical. As if last night hadn't happened. As if normal still prevailed.

Dean swallowed, unsure how long he'd been soaking away the bizarre morning. "Five minutes," he called back. Turning to face the water once more, he scrubbed his hands over his face.

They hadn't spoken yet, not really. Dean had simply turned his head, blinking in amazement at his father's grim face, then allowed John to help him sit upright. Without a word, John had nodded toward his wheelchair and Dean had managed to get to his feet, his head pounding, sweat breaking out on his forehead and his stomach churning. He'd pulled John up, helping him into the wheelchair and moved the chairs and bed to the side so that John could maneuver into his bedroom on his own.

The water turned lukewarm and Dean shut it off, grabbing a towel from the silver bar as he stepped out. The headache that had been poised behind his eyes since he regained consciousness eased back a step while he'd been under the water. But the cold snap of air thrust the pressure back and he narrowed his eyes in retaliation.

He started back into the bedroom and his clothes, but stopped just inside the bathroom doorway, glancing through the open doors toward the living area. John sat in his wheelchair, his broken leg up, his hair still twisted in its rustled morning-after configuration. He didn't look like he'd slept. Wrapping the towel around his waist, Dean moved into the bedroom doorway, trying to figure out what to say next.

"You, uh… need some help? Or… anything?" It sounded as if he were speaking with a stranger.

"It's about time," John groused, rolling his neck. "We need to talk—" John looked over and his face drained of color. "Jesus Christ, kiddo," he breathed, dredging up a rarely-used endearment.

His eyes were on Dean's bare chest.

Dean glanced down. The bandages that had bound his ribs lay in a heap on the floor next to his discarded clothes. His skin was a mottled ripple of coloring, gathering in a series of broken blood vessels in what appeared to be the shape of an elongated hand. Purple, blue, and yellow edged outward toward his sternum.

"Did that thing… _hit_ you?" John asked, turning his chair slowly to face his son.

Dean looked up. "Honestly? I didn't really notice." The bruising had been basically universal in the hospital. The handprint hadn't shown up until days later, when the bone-deep pain had subsided leaving behind tender muscles that whimpered with each stretch. "Kinda happened at light-speed, y'know?"

John blinked, staring at Dean with an unreadable expression, then seemed to fold inward on an exhale. He covered his face with his hands and Dean found his eyes drawn to the reflection of filtered sunbeams bouncing off of his father's wedding band. Nostalgia ran delicate fingers down his spine and he shivered.

"Dad?"

"I'm sorry, Dean," John whispered, the words so low that had there been any other noise in the room, Dean would have missed them. "I am so sorry I got us into this mess."

Knotting the towel at his waist to secure it in place, Dean moved forward. A lump lodged in his throat as his body continued to react to the inadvertent abuse he'd subjected it to by passing out next to the door of the motel room—and apparently on top of his dad—last night.

His chin practically touching his chest, John rubbed the top of his head with the flat of his palm, his words a low rumble. "What the hell do I do now?"

_No… no, don't you say that… not you…_ Dean reached out a shaking hand for the back of a chair, and lowered himself slowly so that he was eye-level with his father. John was _here_ now. He wasn't holed up in some hospital, wounded and weak. He was present and vital and Dean needed him to be _Dad_. To be the super hero he'd always believed him to be. Because if he wasn't…

"Hey… Dad, listen." He nervously cleared his throat.

But John shook his head, dropping his hands but not raising his eyes. "I've been thinking about this all night," he sighed. "You were out, but I couldn't sleep. I just… just watched you. I can't remember the last time I did that with you. Sammy, sure, but… you've always just…"

Dean licked his dry lips and waited, unsure what was coming, where the lesson would be tucked into the carefully selected words. John never spoke to him this way, with such quietness.

"Dean, the truth is… you _can_ do this without me. You _are_ doing it."

Confusion laced the dissipating edges of sleep that clouding his clarity. There wasn't a time in Dean's memory when praise wasn't followed by a chaser. His dad was forever asking Dean if he was picking up what John was putting down—perhaps not always in words, but in signals, in expressions, in actions.

"Question is… what the hell am _I_ doing?" John finished, his eyes skirting over Dean's form and skimming the walls covered with notes and the map of the Olympic Peninsula. In the soft light of morning, the burned-out bulbs were a non-issue. "I shouldn't have let it get this far…"

Dean leaned forward, his elbows on the soft terrycloth towel that covered his knees. "What are you talking about?" He wanted to reach out, rest his hand on his father's arm as he would if this were Sam. But he held himself still, remembering in time that Sam wasn't here—and wasn't going to be here anytime soon. "You're _here_ now… we can figure it out together."

He needed John to look at him. To gather himself up and bark an order. He needed his general back.

John gestured to the wall. "You're on your way to figuring it out on your own, Dean. Might take you a bit longer, but… you're right. You don't need me pushing you."

"Yes, I do." Dean replied without thinking.

Eyebrows up, John closed his eyes and shook his head. "That's not what you said last night."

"Yeah, well," Dean sighed, sinking back against the slatted boards of the chair, the cool wood shocking his bare skin. "I said a lot of shit last night."

John began twisting his wedding ring. Dean watched, anchored by the familiar gesture. "I left you alone to deal with this hunt. _I_ made this mess. And…" he sighed, nodding toward his elevated leg, "I can't do a thing to help you clean it up. I may as well have…"

Dean frowned, his brows nearly meeting over the bridge of his nose. His stomach tightened at the ominous tone in his father's voice.

"What would you have done if the Kappa had killed me?" John asked suddenly.

Dean felt instantly cold, as if his blood had been replaced by ice. He tried to sit upright, away from the unforgiving back of the chair, but found that he couldn't move.

"I saw the mirror, Dean," John said softly, finally looking at him.

_The mirror…_ Air escaped him, drawing tiny black dots from the dimly-lit corners of the room that danced at the edges of Dean's vision.

"Read Dad's journal," John pressed. "Empty PO Box. Find Uncle Bobby. Check on Sam…"

Dean dropped his head, seeking balance, needing air. His skin felt prickly, like the quick jolts from a sparkler's cast-off fire at the Fourth of July.

"I… um…" Dean used the edge of the table to force himself to his feet, knocking his chair backwards in his haste. He turned and reached for the doorframe that separated his bedroom from the living room. Without another word to his father, Dean shut the door between them and dropped heavily onto the corner of the bed.

He'd forgotten about the damn mirror.

One night too many of solitude had led him to thinking _what if_… Several minutes of staring at his silent reflection had spurred him into writing out a possible solution, a plan, the steps he'd take if he found himself truly on his own. He'd never really been alone before; he'd always had Sam to look after, Sam by his side.

But with John laid up in the hospital, the reality of doing this job by himself had hit Dean in the night and he'd done the only thing he could think to do. _Why didn't I erase the damn thing? _He wasn't ready to admit that being alone—being without Sam and John—was the only thing he truly feared. Down deep inside, in a place he chose not to pay attention to, he knew it was true; he didn't need a shrink to point out his co-dependency issues. But knowing it and saying it aloud—to his _father_ of all people—were two entirely different levels of acceptance.

Taking a breath, Dean dropped his towel and gingerly pulled on his day-old clothes. Regardless of familial drama, he had a job to report to today and John was right: he was burning daylight. His muscles called out quick moans of protest as he straightened, tugging his jeans up over his clean boxers. He wrapped his ribs quickly and tightly, having become adept at doing so on his own over the last several days.

Putting on his boots was another matter altogether and he practically bit through his lip as he tied them, vowing to always pass out near something soft from that point forward. Grabbing Sam's hoodie and his canvas jacket, he tossed the mirror a derisive passing glance and opened the bedroom door. Expecting John to be elsewhere, he nearly yelped when he saw his father hadn't moved away from the door.

"You okay?" John asked.

"Yeah," Dean said quietly. "Listen, Dad… about the mirror? It didn't mean anything."

"Hell, yes, it meant something," John retorted.

Dean averted his eyes and moved around his father's wheelchair. "You want some breakfast?"

"It's okay to have a plan, Dean."

"I've got coffee and Lucky Charms," Dean said, opening the cabinets. "And some of those toaster waffles."

"I had a plan in case I couldn't get back to you boys."

Dean shut cabinet and opened the box of Lucky Charms. "I don't want to talk about this."

"Pastor Jim would've taken you—"

Dean slammed the opened box down, cereal bouncing out of the top and scattering across the counter. "I don't want to _talk_ about _this_."

"Why not?"

"Because it's pointless."

"You made a list, Dean. A list of what you'd do if you were alone. A list that _didn't _include finishing this hunt. Or looking up another one. It wasn't pointless."

Dean licked his lips, feeling his world tilt once more. His pulse beat behind his eyes. With a trembling hand he grabbed a glass from the sink and filled it with water. Draining the contents, he turned around, bracing himself by leaning the curve of his lower back against the edge of the counter.

"First of all, nobody would've taken us," Dean said, finding his father's eyes. "I took care of Sam all his life; I'd just keep doing it."

John's eyebrows bounced once. "Not that you've thought about this or anything."

"Second of all, the Kappa didn't kill you—or me—but it did turn our routine into a big ol' clusterfuck, so we got that to deal with."

"If this is your _go team_ speech—" John started.

"And third… we're finishing this hunt."

John blinked slowly. "Kid…" He stopped, looking down, confessing to his lap. His left hand crept down his thigh, gingerly massaging the muscles. "I don't know if I've got it in me. And I can't ask you to clean up my mess—"

"Dad," Dean interrupted him. "Once a Marine, always a Marine, right?"

At that, John looked up, his face going slack in surprise.

"I mean, that's what you always said, isn't it? There's no such thing as a former Marine?"

"Y-yes," John nodded, then cleared his throat. Something shifted is his expression and Dean felt heat radiate through him. "That's right, Son."

Dean swallowed, looking down. He lifted his eyes, keeping his chin tucked submissively against his chest. "I think it's the same for hunters."

John tilted his head, his dark eyes softening.

Dean ran his thumb against the inside of his silver ring, weighing his next words. It wasn't an easy thing to say _suck it up and stop feeling sorry for yourself_ to his hero. It wasn't an easy thing to even _want_ to say it.

"You can't hunt like you _used to_ right now," Dean continued. "But that doesn't mean you're any less important." He glanced down. "It… it doesn't mean I need you any less."

"What about…" John swallowed. "About this not being your war?"

Dean felt the air tighten around him. The hairs on the back of his neck rose sluggishly to attention. "I was… just tired." He pulled his lower lip against his teeth, forcing himself to meet his father's eyes. "Something… evil… killed Mom. Changed everything. There's no way I wouldn't be in this fight. This… I mean… this is my life. It's all I know."

John watched him for another moment, something heavy in his eyes leaking out and illuminating his face. Dean found himself holding his breath, on unfamiliar ground in this oddly open communication with his dad. John dipped his head in a slight nod, and Dean felt his shoulders sag with relief.

The weight in the air seemed to lift as if a storm cloud had passed over, sparing them the torment of rain and raw feelings. Dean wasn't sure if they'd solved anything, but he felt his balance return, a virtual white flag waving between them and putting them back into the roles they were familiar with. Nodding back at John, Dean turned back to the counter and grabbed an empty bowl, filling it with Lucky Charms. He heard the squeal of John's wheelchair as his father maneuvered through the tight spaces.

"You gonna give your old man a hand?" John called from the door way of his bedroom.

Dean glanced over his shoulder. "You serious?"

John's mouth quirked a bit around the edges. "So, you'll help me shave, but you draw the line at anything else?"

Dean lifted an eyebrow. "I don't do sponge baths."

John chuckled. "Ease up, Princess. Just need you to fill the sink and grab a few things for me. I think I can manage to clean myself."

"Thank God," Dean sighed, grabbing his father's crutches from their slant against the wall near the map and made his way into the bedroom.

As John struggled out of his shirt, Dean filled the sink with hot water and placed soap, shampoo and towels within arms reach. He gave John a hand out of the wheelchair and helped him balance on the crutches.

"I gotta go to the site today," he said, picking John's duffel up from the ground and setting it on the edge of the bed for easier reach. "You gonna be okay?"

"I'll manage," John said, scrubbing his face and neck with soap. "Just… y'know, check in or something."

"'kay," Dean nodded and started back for the kitchen.

"Dean," John called. Dean turned back. "I miss it, too."

"It?" Dean frowned.

John looked at him, water dripping from his chin, his hair sticking to his wet forehead. "The way we used to be. I miss…" He sighed and turned back to the mirror, speaking to his own reflection. "I miss Sam, too."

Dean felt his lips twitch and tightened his stomach in rebellion of emotion. He nodded, then turned away, closing the door behind him, grateful in the moment for the mask temporary solitude afforded him.

www

"Our boy has a system, Mary," John mumbled aloud as he regarded Dean's wall of clues. "But I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is."

John had mapped out hunts before. When Dean was around ten or eleven, he'd caught the boy watching with calculating eyes, not commenting, but completely absorbed. When Sammy started asking about the process, he'd shown him how it worked. But Dean had never asked. He'd listened, he'd watched, but he'd never asked.

John had always used thumb tacks and string, finding the pattern, seeking the rhythm. But Dean's notes were a flow of names, half sentences, questions, ideas, possibilities.

"How does he find his way through this maze?" John said, peering at the circled points along the water's edge. "This is like… trying to make sense of Pink Floyd song lyrics."

His eyes caught on the name inside one of the circles and he recognized it as the beach where he and Dean had fought the Kappa. Eyes skimming back over the other locations, he realized they were the points where the bodies of the children had been found. Just below what was possibly the first location, Dean had taped a note that read: _third generation pays the price._

"Third generation?" John muttered. He rubbed his forehead, then made his way back to his wheelchair in a lurching gait. Sinking down into the low-slung seat, he groaned, lifting his leg up into the extension. After just an hour on his feet, the limb began to throb. "I don't know, sweetheart," he sighed, continuing the conversation with his wife. "He's always been more your boy than mine… Maybe that's why I managed to get along with him so much better than Sammy."

Talking to Mary had been a habit of his for years. At night, when he teetered on the edge of consciousness, he'd even feel her answer him. As October quickly fled and November drew closer, John found himself yearning to talk with her more. It was always this way, year after year. November was a bleak month, yet something in him was convinced that one of these years, he would find grounding for Mary's death inside of those thirty days.

Taking a breath, John wheeled over to his duffel and pulled out his journal. Thumbing through to a blank page, he set the book on his lap, open, and wheeled back to the map. Tucked into the spine of the journal was a pen.

"How I wish you were here," he sang softly, distractedly, eyes darting from the wall to his journal, his hand tracking information from one to the other that his brain hadn't yet processed. "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year."

His voice rumbling low in his chest, John tilted his head, seeing suddenly a pattern in Dean's notes where before he'd only seen chaos. "Running over the same old ground. What have we found… the same old fears."

He drew a line connecting the boxes he'd sketched, pulling the notes together in a concert of meaning. "Wish you were here," he whispered, staring at his journal, then up at Dean's collage. "David Gilmore, eat your heart out," John chuckled. "I'll be damned."

The knock at the door startled him from his reverie of wonder. Wheeling himself to the table where Dean had stacked the now-loaded guns—in alphabetical order, John noticed—he pulled out a Glock, chambered a round, then set the weapon in his opened journal resting in his lap. In a few rotations of the wheels, he was at the door, opening it a crack.

Aaron Glover stood on the other side, clean towels balanced in one hand, a plastic grocery bag in the other.

"Hi, Sergeant," the boy greeted.

The cool air John expected from the October afternoon was missing. Instead, an Indian Summer-like warmth rolled through the opening and spilled fresh-aired warmth into the confined room.

"Hey, kid," John replied. "Got yourself a handful."

"Yessir," Aaron replied, craning his neck to see around John's chair. "You planning a mission in there?"

"Something like that," John nodded, closing the Journal to camouflage the weapon, and reached out to take the bag from Aaron's arm. "What's all this?"

"It's for Dean," Aaron informed him, shifting the towels from one arm to both. He didn't seem fazed by not being invited inside. In fact, John mused, it seemed this interaction was almost routine.

John peered into the bag. "Dean asked you to get him beer?" He asked, eyebrows bouncing up to his hairline.

"Nah. I just saw he liked it." Aaron shrugged. "Grabbed a few bottles from Dad's shelf. Believe me, he's got plenty," Aaron shook his head, "and he don't need that much."

John pressed his lips together, and reached into the bag to pull out a package of Peanut M&Ms. He glanced at Aaron. "Really?"

Aaron grinned. "He gave me extra for that."

"Extra what?" John arched a brow, tempted to push the door further open.

Aaron struggled to dig a hand into his jean's pocket. John reached through the opening and took the spare towels from the boy's hands. Aaron dug out three blue marbles, one with a milky-white swirl.

John felt his mouth go dry.

"He added the shooter," Aaron said, a slightly dirt-smeared finger running lightly over the white smudge almost reverently. "Said it was special."

"It is," John said roughly. "He got that for his brother. A long time ago."

Aaron looked up quickly. "What, his brother not want it?"

John tugged up the corner of his mouth in a sad attempt at a smile. "Not really."

He felt a now-familiar ache settle around his heart as he thought about the kid Dean never really got to be. Apparently, that boy was still hiding in there somewhere, peeking large eyes around the corners of the internal walls Dean had so solidly constructed over the years.

"Well, guess that's good for me, then." Aaron shoved the marbles back in his pocket.

John grinned. "Sam was just… into different things. Dean would try to teach him about car engines and Sam would be more interested in reading the owner's manual."

Aaron's face screwed up in disgust. "Sam's a weird guy," he said with the scoff of the innocent. "I'd give anything to have a guy like Dean show me that stuff."

"Well," John sighed, thinking about the marble. "Some stuff stuck. The really important stuff."

"If you say so," Aaron shrugged. His face smoothed out with a light of remembrance. "Oh, I almost forgot." He pulled a pink slip of paper from his back pocket and handed it to John. "Some lady named Dr. Rice called the office looking for you."

"Thanks, kid," John said, taking the note, thankful that he hadn't given her his cell number as his message contained his real name.

"You can just leave the dirty towels outside the door. Thataway no one sees the secret stuff."

John's smile turned genuine as he regarded the boy. "You take care of that shooter, now."

"Yessir," Aaron grinned, tossing John a three-fingered salute, then turned and ran back toward the manager's office, his Converse sneakers slapping in a steady rhythm against the cement.

John shut the motel room door, turning the lock, and wheeled back to the table to set down the towels and unload the journal and gun from his lap. He opened the note.

_Friday, 5pm. Physical Therapy._

"Swell," John sighed.

As if he didn't have enough to deal with. He glanced up at the clock mounted on the wall above the table. He had five hours until Dean returned. Closing his eyes he tried not to let helplessness take over.

www

"There's the miracle worker himself," Gus greeted as Dean approached the now-bustling worksite.

"Am I late?"

"Nah," Gus shook his head, waving him over. "Just talked a few of these townies into starting early. Want to get the outer walls and windows finished as soon as possible. We can take our time on the interior."

"Why the rush?" Dean asked, slipping his canvas jacket from his shoulders, but keeping Sam's hoodie in place. He tossed the garment into an empty corner and accepted the tool belt Gus offered.

"You'd think Halloween would be the problem," Gus said, tucking a pencil behind his ear, his dark eyes skimming over the ant-like movement of the dozen or so men moving around the construction site. "But it starts about the middle of the month. Last twenty years or so, it's been a cluster of vandalism and destruction around town. Need to get the property as protected as possible."

"So you don't just have a Devil's Night, huh?" Dean asked, shifting his hips to find a comfortable resting place for the tool belt overtop his jeans. "Guess I always thought that was more of a Detroit thing."

"Nah, it's a _punk_ thing," Gus scoffed. "An excuse to cause trouble and blame it on the spooks. Speaking of," he glanced askance at Dean. "Since you did that salt mojo, things have been quiet as a grave around here."

_Poor choice of words,_ Dean thought as he masked his wince with a shrug. "Sometimes you can never tell what'll work."

"Well, spreading rock-salt around a construction site pretty much defies all logic, but I ain't looking to drop-kick a gift horse, y'know?"

Dean rubbed his lower lip with the flat of his finger. "Logic is the beginning of wisdom. Not the end."

Gus cocked an eyebrow. "Confucius? Budda?"

Raising his hand in a _live long and prosper_ salute, Dean grinned. "Spock."

"Gotta love _Star Trek_," Gus laughed.

"And hours of late night TV," Dean agreed. "Where do you want me?"

"You can go topside—third floor—with… oh, wait. That's Cole," Gus said, then met Dean's eyes. "On second thought… how 'bout you head to the east wing, third unit over. Look for an older guy named Chester."

"Want to keep the _gaijin _away from the locals, huh?" Dean tilted his chin toward Gus with a tolerant smile teasing his lips.

"More like spare you his shit," Gus shook his head. "If I didn't need help so badly, I'd kick his ass outta here."

"Something happen?" Dean asked, hooking a thumb in his tool belt and cocking his hip in a causal stance. The weight of the belt felt like a holster and he hid a secret grin as he imagined heading to the third floor and 'calling out' Cole Lawson.

Gus sighed. "He's had his boxers in a twist about Marissa Teller since that night at McGee's bar. Guess he found out you took her home."

Dean grunted. "Yeah. I _took her home_. End of story."

"Doesn't matter to Cole."

"Dude's an idiot," Dean muttered.

"You're not wrong," Gus said, nodding at Dean as he moved away.

Dean headed to the east wing of the building, searching for Chester, who turned out to be an extremely skinny man with lines etched on his face like calligraphy and tattoos snaking around each finger on both hands. He used very few words to instruct Dean on what to do and where to go, and Dean found that they were able to create an easy rhythm of companionship. He compensated for his still-damaged ribs, realizing that if he shifted most of the weight of any one thing he was instructed to pick up, carry, or hold to his left he was able to do his job without too much pain.

The day passed quickly and by the time they broke for lunch, they'd raised the outside wall, insolated the interior, and placed plywood all along the inside the east wall of their wing. Dean was spent, but satisfied. His hands ached from gripping the nail gun, and his back was a mess of coiled muscles from trying to keep his ribs protected, but he felt accomplished. He'd worked all of his life, but it was hard being good at something no one really cared about. This job was something people would see. People would use. And people could know he'd been a part of it.

"You eating, Winchester?"

Chester's voice seemed to come straight from his chest. He had a way of not looking directly at any one thing, even the person he was addressing. His eyes drifted, fixing on emptiness for a moment, then sliding away. It made Dean constantly want to glance over his shoulder.

"Thinkin' about it," Dean replied.

"Don't see no lunch bag," Chester pointed out, dropping down in one of the few remaining wall openings on their end of the building, his spindly legs swinging down into the drop-off below.

"Yeah…" Dean said, glancing down at his empty hands. He hadn't thought through lunch; they always just stopped and grabbed when they were hungry on the road or during a hunt. Or they went without until they could.

"C'mere," Chester gestured with his head. "I got plenty. Wife thinks I'm too skinny."

"You're kidding," Dean deadpanned as he sat next to Chester.

The man grinned—a macabre grimace in a river of age lines—and handed Dean a foil-wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water.

"Heard you made yourself an enemy," Chester said. "Thought at first it was Kwaiya."

"Why?" Dean asked, surprised.

"Saw him watching you," Chester nodded toward the western slope of land where Dean had first seen the big man dressed in Native American garb earlier in the week. "Knew he was sweet on Marissa. Knew you took her home."

"Damn!" Dean listed to the side, supporting his body against the stud and watching Chester talk. "Word travels fast, huh?"

Chester glanced in Dean's direction, stopping short of looking right at him. "Not much else to do in a small town 'cept talk."

"Fair enough," Dean nodded, taking another bite of sandwich. "I don't think it's Kwaiya, though."

"'s not," Chester shook his head. "He likes you."

"You ask him?" Dean inquired.

"Nah, don't have to," Chester shrugged. "Can just tell. It's Lawson's kid."

"Yeah," Dean sighed. "Figured."

"I think you can handle yourself," Chester said, pausing to take a swig of water. "But I'd still stay away from Cole Lawson. He's…"

"A dick," Dean finished.

Chester grinned his wide, skeletal grin once more and nodded.

"Hey, Chester," Dean asked. "What's the story on Kwaiya anyway?" Gus hadn't known much, and it would help him get a jump on digging into the back story of the town if he had some more information.

"You see that stretch of land yonder?" Chester said, pointing with his half-eaten sandwich. When Dean nodded, he continued. "That's Quileute land. Long time ago—maybe fifteen, twenty years—one of the men from the tribe found a white boy, half-drowned, beaten, pretty much dead. He told the sheriff, but," Chester took a bite of sandwich, speaking around the food, "no one went out to investigate."

"How come?" Dean asked, following suit with the food, speaking balance.

Chester looked toward him. "Quileute's have a reputation for…" he shrugged, "shape-shifting."

Dean simply waited. When he said nothing, Chester shook himself and continued.

"Anyway, locals kinda avoid them. Y'know, just in case."

Dean finished his sandwich. "Afraid one of them's gonna wolf-out on you?"

"_I _ain't," Chester said quickly. "But people… yeah. Anyway, this kid… no one in town claimed him; sheriff didn't investigate, so the tribe raised him, even though he was white."

"That was Kwaiya?"

Chester nodded once, wadding up the paper bag his sandwich had been in and taking another long pull on his water bottle. "Kwaiya's kinda special around here—and not just because he knows the Quileute's. He's just… special. Just about everyone wants to protect him."

"Everyone but Cole Lawson," Dean guessed.

"Cole's had it in for the guy ever since I can remember."

Dean looked down at his boots dangling just above the ground.

"Marissa Teller used to date a kid from Kwaiya's tribe," Chester said, tucking his legs under him like a colt and preparing to stand. "Not sure what, but something made that kid skedaddle. Kwaiya's kept an eye on her ever since."

"And that just makes Cole eight shades of crazy," Dean said, using the wall stud to pull himself up and offering a hand to the older man.

"You might say that," Chester nodded.

By the time Dean finished his day, he and Chester had closed off the east wing of the third unit and the dry-wall crew had moved in to work overnight. There were two more units to complete, but Dean guessed that if they kept moving at this pace, they'd be done before the week of Halloween, easy.

His body was a walking whimper, but he felt oddly whole. He'd earned each pulled muscle, each strained joint. He'd done an honest day's work that he could tell someone about. No one had died and he hadn't had to kill anything.

Yet.

"See you up at McGee's, boys," Gus called from the west entrance. "First round's on me."

"You comin'?" Chester inquired.

"Nah, thanks, man," Dean waved him off, pulling on the hoodie once more. The day had gotten warm enough for him to shed a couple of layers as he worked. "Gonna go check on my dad."

Chester tossed him a wave and stepped away. Dean unbuckled his tool belt, easing it off his sore hips. The relief of the weight made his body sigh and he made his way slowly to the west entrance to pick up his jacket.

"Lookin' for this?"

Dean dropped the tool belt next to a tall, red toolbox. Marissa stood in the doorway, the dying light of day filling the area around her with deep purple shadows. She wore boots and a short denim skirt under an oversized gray sweatshirt that still somehow managed to show off her curves. Dean's eyes caught on the shape of her legs and he had to force himself to look away.

He reached for the jacket she held out to him. "Yeah, thanks."

"No problem." She smiled. He knew that smile. Promises were held in that smile.

"What brings you around here?" Dean asked.

"I was looking for you," Marissa said, stepping closer. "I, uh… I wanted to thank you. For the other night."

He could smell her perfume. It wasn't flowery, but it was light. Like her skin had soaked up the sweetness of the day and was letting it escape in small hints of scent. It made him want to pull her closer and bury his nose in the soft spot of her neck right where it curved to meet her shoulder.

"You don't have to thank me," Dean said, easing the jacket on over Sam's hoodie. "You decide what you're gonna do?"

Marissa looked down, shoving her fingers into the pockets of her skirt. "No," she confessed softly.

Dean ducked his head, catching her eyes. He almost didn't notice when she stepped closer yet again. "S'okay to be scared, y'know," he offered.

"It's just," she shrugged, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, then looking up at him through her lashes. "It's such a big change."

Dean's eyes rested on her mouth. "Sure it is," he said softly. "You just gotta decide if he's worth it."

"You've got me all confused," Marissa breathed, leaning up on her toes, her mouth inches from his.

"Marissa!"

Her name was barked with such a sense of authority and ownership that Dean felt himself snarl even before Marissa's flinch had her stepping back and away. Cole Lawson stepped through the opening, his eyes on Marissa, his tool belt in his hand.

"What the _hell _are you doing here, girl?"

"Me? What are _you_ doing here?" Marissa shot back.

"I work here." Cole's eyes darted between Marissa and Dean, glittering in the echoed light.

"I watched you leave," Marissa returned, a line bisecting her brow.

Cole glared at her. "I asked you a question. What are you doing here… with _him_?"

"How is that any of your business, Cole?" Marissa snapped, turning from Dean and heading for the door, Cole between her and freedom.

"Guess it's my business where my girlfriend spends her time."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"You stay out of this _gaijin_," Cole snapped.

Dean tilted his head. "Careful," he said mildly. "Using words above your pay-grade. Might sprain something."

"I was never your girlfriend," Marissa said, stepping between Cole and Dean. "And we stopped dating when I realized that I'd learned everything interesting about you inside of five minutes."

Cole reached up and grabbed her arm, jerking her towards him and causing her to gasp.

Instinctively, Dean moved forward with a, "Hey!"

He heard the tool belt drop, but his eyes were on the hand gripping Marissa's arm. It wasn't until Cole released Marissa that Dean saw the crescent wrench in his other hand. The silver of the tool glinted off of the shop lights the dry-wall team had set up around the interior of the construction site.

Pushing Marissa aside, Cole stepped forward, wrench raised. "You think you can come in here, cast some spell over Gus, over Marissa, and just… solve all our problems like some Goddamn rainmaker?"

Dean lifted his hands, palms up. "Dude, I'm just trying to do a job. Believe me, soon as I can, I'm outta here."

Marissa turned away. Cole tightened his grip on the wrench.

"Oh, I think that's gonna be sooner than you'd planned."

Dean zeroed his focus in on the bigger man's exposed throat, calculating his chances of a quick punch taking out Cole's windpipe before the wrench broke Dean's skull open. Before he raised his fist, however, he heard the ironically welcoming sound of a police siren. The blue and red lights turned the interior of the building into a twisted disco.

"Lawson!"

Dean didn't recognize the voice. A man in a tan sheriff's uniform stepped in, his hand on the butt of his unsnapped pistol. Cole turned to face him, the wrench lowering slowly as he pivoted.

"Got a call from one of Gus' boys," the sheriff stated, flat eyes moving around the room to take them all in. "Said they's worried there might be trouble here…"

"Sheriff," Marissa said, her voice shaking slightly. "I want to press charges."

"What?!" Cole exclaimed.

"This man assaulted me." Marissa held up her wrist and even in the dim light Dean could see rising bruises.

"What about this other guy?" the sheriff asked, nodding toward Dean.

Marissa glanced at him, regret turning her blue eyes limpid. "He's just trying to go home," she said softly.

Repeating Cole's Miranda rights, the sheriff cuffed the man's hands behind his back.

"This ain't over," Cole snarled toward Dean.

"Oh, that's original," Dean scoffed. "What's next? _I'll be back_?"

The sheriff hauled Cole forcibly out of the building and pressed the top of his head down as Cole folded himself into the back of the patrol car. Dean watched, standing next to Marissa. As the car pulled away, he felt her sigh.

"Maybe I have decided," she said. "Just… got a few more things to wrap up before I can leave."

"Just go," Dean said, not looking at her. "Let the rest take care of itself."

Marissa shook her head. "I can't. Not with this. It's too big."

Dean frowned, looking down at her. "What is it?"

Her eyes far away, Marissa sighed. "Someone else's mess."

www

He heard the Impala return, feeling a calm ease quiet fingers through him. The creak of the door followed by a low-voiced hum and the snap of metal on metal preceded Dean's entrance. He unlocked the motel door, tossed his keys on the table just inside the door as if he'd been doing that very thing all his life and glanced around quickly, his eyes catching on John.

"Hey, old man."

"Hey, yourself," John returned, unable to mask the small smile at seeing his boy walk through the door—in one piece. "You done playing with grown-up Lincoln Logs for the day?"

"Yep," Dean nodded, slipping out of his jacket and a gray hoodie that appeared a size too large for him. "Dude, I'm cooked."

"How're the ribs?"

"Sore," Dean groaned as he sat slowly in one of the straight-backed chairs, a hand resting like a shield against his side. His head dropped forward, chin to his chest, and he closed his eyes with a heavy sigh.

"What's for dinner?" John teased.

Dean didn't look up. "I work all day and you can't even have food on the table when I get back?"

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," John said. "Look in the bag."

Dean did as he was instructed, his face lighting up at the contents. "Mm! Jerky. And M&Ms! That kid is awesome," he sighed, tearing into the bag of chocolate.

"He also got you beer," John informed him.

Dean's head snapped up. "What? How the hell'd he do that?"

"Swiped it from his old man."

Dean frowned. "Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that. No good getting himself in trouble over me."

John smiled inwardly at the look of protection that slipped easily across Dean's face. He'd seen it so many times as the boys were growing up he'd taken it for granted. In the time since Sam had left, the look had been lost in the minutia of survival, but seeing it again, John felt a sense of peace. That his boy wasn't too far gone.

"He brought light bulbs, too. Guess you called his dad about that?"

Dean lifted a shoulder.

"I replaced the one above the table, but you'll have to get the other ones."

"'Kay," Dean said, filling the palm of his hand with candy.

"You gonna ask about my day?" John said, wheeling his chair closer to the table.

"Sure," Dean said around an M&M. "You recruit any mutants, there, Professor X?"

"Always with the humor," John shot his son a glance of false irritation. "I spent most of the day trying to crack your code."

"My code?" Dean's eyebrow bounced up.

John nodded to the map on the wall. "I think you got something there." He opened his journal and spun it around to face Dean. "And I think it all started in '81."

Dean leaned forward, popping three M&Ms into his mouth. "What happened in '81?"

John looked sideways at his son. "You had several people mention something happening twenty years ago… something about a curse."

Dean stopped chewing, lifting his eyes to meet his father's. "Yeah…"

"Look here." John slid a paper out from underneath the journal and shoved it under Dean's nose, pointing to an article with the headline: _Town 'Celebrates' Macabre Anniversary_. "This is one of the papers they brought me to read while I was trapped in that damn bed. In 1981, a woman died in a fire in the temporary jail here in Brinnon."

"She died _in_ the jail?" Dean asked, eyes skimming the type. "What was she in there for?"

"Article doesn't say," John revealed, leaning back. "But what it does say is where that jail was."

"Gus' construction site," Dean said.

"Yep."

"Son of a bitch."

"Another thing." John pointed once more to the journal. "Your… flow chart or whatever up there seemed to come down to one pretty specific name."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I've been thinking that same thing. Had to be close enough to the building to gain access—"

"And had to be able to figure out the Japanese summoning spell for the Kappa—"

"And had to have something to gain by the building not getting finished."

"Marissa Teller," John declared at the same time Dean said, "Cole Lawson."

"What?" They exclaimed in unison.

"Dad, Cole Lawson is a total douche bag," Dean said. "Gus said it himself; he's been trying to sabotage this project from the beginning. Only reason Gus hasn't fired his ass is that he needs help. And Lawson's brother is one of the partners."

"But your little girlfriend has a pretty hefty motive—losing her boyfriend like that. And witches are more commonly female; the Kappa was summoned by someone familiar with wiccan rituals."

Dean shook his head, pushing himself to his feet. "It's not Marissa," he said decisively. "She's got issues, yeah, but you should've seen her talk about her niece, Annie. She was devastated."

John shrugged. "Maybe Annie was a mistake."

"Maybe," Dean conceded, "but my money's on Lawson. I almost got into it with him tonight. Guy's not hitting on all cylinders."

John frowned. "Got into it?"

Dean shrugged out of his long-sleeved shirt. "Man, it's hot in here. Yeah, he caught Marissa and I talking and thought it would be a good idea to take a crescent wrench to my head."

"You okay?" John asked quickly, his gut tightening in worry.

"Cops showed up." Dean wandered into his room and dug out a change of clothes. John watched him glance at the bedroom mirror and then he disappeared around the corner. "Arrested him for assaulting Marissa. He'll be out of the picture for a few days at least."

He came back into view and John saw that he'd pulled off his T-shirt and that it was covered with black smudges. Lips tugging up into an abbreviated smile, John wheeled back over to the map, looking at it as he waited for Dean to emerge.

"It's one of these guys you have up here," John said. "And I'm willing to bet whoever it is knows exactly what happened to that woman in '81."

"Man, I'm starving," Dean muttered as he stepped back into the living room area dressed in sweat pants, a clean T-shirt, and carrying the discarded radio.

John watched, partly annoyed, yet mostly amused when Dean plugged the radio into the wall and set it on the counter next to the sink. Lynyrd Skynyrd's _Saturday Night Special_ crackled to clarity and Dean grinned, heading back to the table and flipping John's journal around to face him.

"You gonna work or listen to music?" John asked, forced irritation weighting his words, his face betraying him.

Dean glanced up. "I can't do both?"

John sighed. "It's not one of the partners," he said as the lyrics to a song he'd heard thousands of times drifted into his subconscious.

_Well hand guns are made for killin'. They ain't no good for nothin' else…_

"You sure about that?"

"It's _their_ kids that were killed, Dean," John pointed out.

"Like you said," Dean shrugged, "maybe one was a mistake."

"We know just enough to be stupid about this." John rubbed his face. "Four kids and one doctor have already died—"

"And you've got a busted-to-hell leg," Dean interjected.

"We need to know _for sure_," John stressed. "There are too many lives tangled up in this."

"Aw, damn," Dean replied sarcastically. "And here I was gonna say we should toss a dart at the board and be done with it."

John ignored him. "This isn't a straight salt and burn, but I do think a spirit is involved. Someone summoned the Kappa—"

"And painted the protection symbols around the building… Hey, Dad," Dean said suddenly, interrupting himself. "Does the article say which unit of the old building the jail used to be in?" He fingered the edge of the newspaper, frowning as he scanned the contents once more.

"Not that I remember," John said. "Why?"

"Because the building is parceled up in three units," Dean said, setting down the paper and looking at his father, a line of thought dividing his brows. "And only the first one—the far west one—was covered with the protection symbols."

John narrowed his eyes. "What are you thinking?"

Dean tilted his head. "Are we sure a person did this? I mean… a you _sure_ a spirit couldn't have summoned the Kappa?"

Sighing, John rotated his hand in a slight shrug. "Let me make some calls," he conceded, "but I've never heard of it happening."

Dean rubbed his stomach lightly. "You didn't finish the toaster waffles did you? 'Cause I'm _starving_."

"So you said," John mentioned dryly, his eyes slipping up to the map once more. His mind began to churn through the facts, taking in Dean's abbreviated notes, considering the organized information he'd jotted down in his journal. _Woman burned to death, trapped in a cell, building becomes her grave, building remodeled, grave desecrated…_

"Dad!"

"What?" John looked over.

"I've been talking to you for like five minutes here," Dean said, irritated. "What the hell are you thinking about?"

"The hunt," John said simply.

"You ate all those waffles, didn't you?" Dean grumbled. "I'm going out for pizza."

"Hold up a minute," John said.

"Unless Aaron knows someone who can deliver in this Mayberry of a town," Dean continued, heading into his room for a jacket.

"Just sit tight, Dean," John ordered, his voice gruff enough to get Dean's attention. He glanced at the clock. "Give it five minutes."

"_Tell me_ you ordered a pizza," Dean moaned.

"Aaron's got connections," John grinned as Dean sighed happily and sank into his chair. "You owe him that red shooter, though."

Dean's head snapped up. "He told you about the marbles?"

"He did," John nodded, offering Dean a smile of approval. "It was a good idea."

Dean grinned slightly. "Someone should use them, huh?"

"Yeah," John agreed.

As the radio rotated through the evening song list, Dean went to the fridge and used the edge of his ring to open two bottles of beer. They sat and drank in comfortable silence until the pizza was delivered. John watched his son all-but inhale two pieces of pepperoni before he spoke again.

"Think there's anything to that curse?" he asked his dad.

John shrugged. "I think you had the right idea about the third generation paying the price. Only reason those kids are dead is because of something their parents did."

"Or their grandparents."

John nodded, reaching for his crutches and standing awkwardly. "Keep talking," he said as he made his way to the duffel on his bed. He was past due for pain meds and feeling the ache in his leg increase the longer he sat.

"Twenty years ago, Jake Teller was in high school," Dean said, thinking out loud. "So were the rest of those guys. So, it's totally possible that they did something stupid, got that woman killed, and doomed their own town."

"It's also possible," John continued, swallowing two pills with a swig of beer, "that they're innocent, just like their kids were."

Dean sighed and opened another bottle of beer, standing in front of the map and his notes, rocking slightly back and forth in time with the music.

"So… the three of the four partners have a history with this town through their fathers. According to a few random people I've talked to, Joe Lawson—real piece of work, by the way—Frank Teller, and Roman Sutcliff were all a pretty big deal back in the day," he said, eyes on his notes. "Joe owned a construction business that helped build a lot of the downtown. Frank was a doctor and Gus told me Roman did a stint as sheriff."

"The Brinnon Trinity," John said, shuffling slowly back into the room.

"Frank's dead, Joe's become a permanent fixture on a bar stool at the local diner, and I don't have a clue where Roman is. Or if he's even still alive." Dean turned staring just past his father, still lost in thought. "Something big—the fire—happens twenty years ago. They aren't able to rebuild the block. The town starts to die. Then their sons teamed up with some random fourth guy and started this partnership. They decide to restore the place, and all hell breaks loose."

John sighed. "You know what we need."

A look crossed Dean's face and his lips parted just as a name ferreted through John's thoughts. Dean clamped his mouth shut as if he'd been caught swearing in church, and John dismissed the possibility almost as quickly as his brain had conjured it. Sam wasn't there. He wasn't going to be there. And no amount of missing him was going to bring him back if he didn't want to come back.

"A library," Dean answered, his voice slightly choked. He took a pull on his beer bottle, flipped a chair around backwards, and slung a leg over it, resting his forearm across the back of the chair and his chin on his forearm. "So much for my code, huh?"

"Not unusual to need a library during a hunt like this," John said, easing himself back into his wheelchair. In the background, Springsteen's smoky moan lamented about being in the _Darkness on the Edge of Town._ "Your mom loved this song," John said, surprising himself.

Dean's head bobbed up. "She did?"

"I always teased her that it was because she had the hots for The Boss," John grinned, his gaze unfocused, seeing not the motel room, or the dingy curtains, or even his green-eyed son sitting across from him, but instead the sassy eyes of a curvy blonde glancing up at him through her lashes, lips quirked in a secret smile. "She'd just shush me and… this part, this line here…"

_Everybody's got a secret, Sonny. Something that they just can't face. Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it. They carry it with them every step that they take…_

"…she'd turn that up and sing along." John's grin slipped, turning sad. _God, I miss you, Baby_. "She had to sing low, like Springsteen. She couldn't hit all the notes if she didn't. Sounded like a lounge singer, y'know? All… gritty. Like she'd spent her life surviving on whiskey and cigarettes."

He'd almost forgotten Dean was in the room. His arms had begun to ache in that gut-twisting way that kept him up at night. The ache of the amputee. When something that was supposed to be there was cut away, violently. He sighed, taking a long pull on his beer.

"Haven't listened to this in a long time," John confessed, turning his eyes to Dean and finally drawing him back into his orbit, focusing on his son's pale face and sad eyes.

"You, uh," Dean started. "You never really… y'know… talked about her like that before. Like she… was a person."

John felt his mouth trip over a botched attempt at a smile. "Yeah, I guess not. I wanted you boys to… to remember her as your mom. She loved being your mom. It's really all she ever wanted."

"To be a mom?"

John nodded. "She wanted a family. Hers was… well, it was screwed up."

"Guess it's genetic," Dean said.

John huffed out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, I guess so."

"What else did she like to listen to?" Dean asked, his voice young, hesitant, as if afraid this bubble of honesty would burst and things would go back to the way they were before.

_The third generation pays the price,_ John thought as he regarded Dean. _You got that right, Son_.

"She liked Tom Petty," John said, nodding with memory. "And Fleetwood Mac."

"Ack, Mom!" Dean protested. "Now I know where Sammy gets it."

"She used to sing a Beatle's song to you when you were a baby," John revealed, watching Dean's face open in wonder.

"She did?"

"You used to just stare at her, like you couldn't get your eyes big enough." John felt emotion welling as he spoke, the ache in his arms turning into a bright pain. "I told her it was because you hated her choice in music, but she'd just ignore me and go right on singing."

"What did she sing?" Dean asked, his voice hushed.

"_In My Life,_" John said, his voice a whisper. "She only sang it to you."

They sat in silence as Audioslave claimed _I Am the Highway_. After a moment, Dean cleared his throat and stood.

"Been a long day," he said in a tight voice. "Think I'll turn in. You, uh… need anything?"

John shook his head, his face pulled close. "I got it."

"You sure?" Dean pressed. "Not a lot of room to move—"

"I said I got it," John barked, memory making his voice gruff, his tone impatient. He needed Dean to leave. Just go so that he could be alone with Mary.

"Okay, then," Dean nodded, lifting his hands in surrender, his face, when John glanced at it, registering that the moment of peace was gone and they were back to the ranks of soldier and general. "Night."

"Night, Son," John said softly to the closed door of Dean's bedroom.

www

He blamed it on the dream.

It was the fifth time he'd dreamed he was looking for Sam and found that damn turtle instead. Each time the dream grew more hazy, more frightening. As if he were somehow losing himself the longer he went without finding his brother.

He woke with a startled jerk, the shock of awareness taxing to his system. His skin felt damp, panic having drawn perspiration from his body and chilled him. Rolling carefully to his back, Dean drew his hands from beneath his pillow, forcing his fingers to open and release his hold on the knife he'd taken to keeping under his pillow since he was just about ten years old and a shtriga had almost killed his brother.

It was dark in his room; the clock radio was in the living room. He could still hear the music playing softly through his closed door. Either John had never gone to bed, or he'd kept the radio on.

Kicking his legs free of covers, Dean rolled to an elbow and used it to push himself upright. His tender ribs hitched with the movement and he caught his breath, tired of the pain. Tired of being tired. He reached to the spare bed and grabbed his jeans, digging into the pocket for his cell phone.

Seven in the morning.

He'd either wake him up or leave a message; at this point Dean didn't care. He just needed to hear his brother's voice. Just remind himself that at one time, there had been such a thing as balance in his life.

"_This is Sam. You know what to do."_

Dean had nearly five seconds to try to decide if he was disappointed or relieved as the recorded voice instructed him to leave a message at the beep.

"Hey, Sammy," he started, forced to clear the sleep from his voice. "I'd say I hope you're out with those friends of yours closing down some bar, but knowing you, you're probably passed out on top of some fat law book. I, um…" _I miss you. Just say it, Dean._ "I just wanted to say hi, y'know. Check in. Things are… well, they just are, I guess. Talking to Dad is like riding one fucked-up roller coaster sometimes. Hit me back when you can."

He pressed the 'end' button with the phone still next to his ear.

"Miss you, man," he whispered to the dial tone.

Sighing, he eased back on the bed and crossed his arms over his eyes. "Goddamn turtle dream," he muttered.

He showered away a night of wandering thoughts and dressed in layers, unsure what to expect from the temperamental Pacific Northwest weather. When he stepped into the living room, he found it empty, the smell of pizza and beer heavy in the air. Wrinkling his nose in disgust, he hummed along softly to Alice in Chains' _Would?_ as he gathered the pizza box and empty bottles, stuffing them into a plastic trash bag.

Pausing to listen for movement from his dad's room, he set the instant coffee and a mug down on the counter where John could reach it, then turned to the table to grab his car keys. Sitting next to the keys was a pink paper with a note about John's physical therapy that evening at five. Grabbing the pen from the spine of John's journal, he wrote, _I'll be back in time_ and slipped the note under the edge of the mug.

Taking the trash with him, Dean exited into the foggy morning. The encroaching day was warmer than the retreating night and as he drove away from the motel he felt as if he were shrouded, somehow hidden from the true face of his surroundings. He grabbed a breakfast biscuit at the gas station, eating it as he put ten dollars' worth into the Impala. He half expected to be the first on the job site, but admitted that he wasn't surprised to see Gus walking through a preliminary punch list.

"Hey, there," Gus nodded at him. "Back for more, are you?"

"Depends," Dean grinned. "You got a check for me?"

Gus pulled out a white envelope, too fat to be just a check. "Didn't figure you'd have any place to cash it, so…"

Dean took the envelope and peered inside. "This is more than two days' work, Gus," he said, frowning as he looked up.

Gus shrugged. "I padded it a bit. Don't worry; you'll earn it."

It was on the tip of Dean's tongue to resist, but the arch of Gus' brow stopped him.

"Thanks, man," Dean nodded, folding the envelope and stuffing it into his back pocket. He shrugged out of his jacket and rolled up the sleeves on his flannel outer shirt. "Didn't expect it to be so warm in October."

"Usually isn't," Gus said, buckling his tool belt as he spoke. "Once in awhile we'll get a random heat wave, but it'll be snuffed out in a week or so."

"I'm not complaining," Dean said, picking up his own belt and registering the fact that he was actually able to bend over without catching his breath.

"You and Chester turned it out yesterday," Gus commented. "Think you can team up on unit two? Get the ground floor set up?"

Dean nodded. "You got someone on the upper floors?" he asked, thinking about Cole being arrested and Gus now a man down.

Gus' lips quirked in a suppressed grin. "He won't stay the day in there, you know. Big brother'll have him out by this afternoon."

"You planning on letting him come back to work?"

"Not if I can help it," Gus said, waving at another arriving worker. "You won't have to watch your back while you're here."

"Good to know," Dean nodded, starting for the second unit, then pausing. "Oh, Gus," he called. "I need to knock off at four. Take my dad to the doc's."

"He okay?" Gus asked.

Dean pressed his lips together in thought. "Take a bear, break its leg, tie it to a chair, and set a jar of honey just out of arm's reach, then ask it that question."

Gus huffed out a laugh. "Do what you gotta do, man."

By nine, Dean was thankful that he'd tucked his throwing knives into his boots rather than his arm sheathes as he had stripped his long-sleeved shirt and tied it around his waist below his tool belt. By eleven, a dark V of sweat decorated his T-shirt, the cotton material clinging to the valleys and ridges of muscle along his back. He'd thought to bring a bottle of water with him today, but it was gone before he and Chester broke for lunch.

"Wife packed you some grub," Chester said as they walked in tandem toward the slope of land that emptied into an inlet of the Sound. "Told her you couldn't get enough of her turkey."

Dean grinned his appreciation and took the proffered bag. Chester dropped down on a large rock, reaching between his shoulder blades and pulling his now-grimy T-shirt off over his head. Dean blinked at the intricate coloring and design that covered the thin man's chest and back.

"Impressive," he said around a mouthful of sandwich. "What does it mean?"

Chester didn't even glance down; his eyes wandered the curved coastline, not resting on any one thing as he ate. "Nothin' 'cept that I thought I had a lot to say to no one who'd listen when I was younger."

"Looks like… Valkyries," Dean said, tilting his head to peer at the tattoo design that seemed to shift from angelic to horrific as Chester's muscles constricted with movement.

"We could learn a lot from our past," Chester said simply.

Dean nodded, deciding he liked Chester's idea of sunning himself in the rare moment of peace and settled down on the rocky shoreline, his back against the cool body of the rock. After a moment, he slipped off his T-shirt and leaned his head back, eyes closed against the sunlight. The faintly acrid scent of cigarette smoke wafted their way from the other men breaking for lunch and mixed with the briny smell of the ocean.

He felt his muscle begin to uncoil as the sun heated his skin. He'd decided against wrapping his ribs that morning and the rays glided over his chest like a lover's caress. The deep-tissue ache that had seemed to become a part of him over the last week had surreptitiously lessened and he found he could tighten his stomach muscles without his chest protesting the movement. Rolling his neck and listening to the crack of his joints, Dean vowed to not take feeling whole for granted again.

"That ain't no tattoo," Chester remarked calmly.

"Nope," Dean replied.

"Cole do that?"

A note of protectiveness had slipped behind Chester's words causing Dean to open one eye and squint up at the older man. "You're the one that called the cops last night, weren't you?"

"I was. You didn't answer my question."

"Easy, man," Dean closed his eye and continued eating. "Cole didn't do this."

"What the hell happened then?"

Dean sighed, pulling his head up and opening his eyes. He faced the west side of the building and could see other workers sitting around the site at random places, eating, talking, smoking. He let his eyes move along the outer edge of the building, thinking back to the protection symbols being only in the first unit, wondering how much change the building had gone through in the first stages of remodeling before he'd gotten there.

"Happened on a job," Dean said distractedly.

_Was that Marissa?_ He leaned forward slightly, peering into the shadows of the building. There was a woman standing near the building. Dean blinked, frowning, trying to figure out what seemed off about her.

"Hey, Chester," he said, not looking away from the woman's figure. "You know that lady there?"

"Lady?" Chester asked, and Dean heard some gravel dislodge as the other man shifted. "What lady?"

"Over there by the edge of the—"

And then it hit him. She was too still. The warm October wind dried the sweat from his bare back, rattled the paper bag at his feet, but didn't lift her dark hair from her shoulders or stir her white T-shirt against her body.

"Son of a bitch," Dean breathed.

She stood in the darkened triangle of the building, just this side of the sunlight, and, Dean realized, on the outer edge of the salt ring he'd spread around the sight.

"What?"

"You don't see her?" Dean looked over his shoulder quickly, making sure Chester was looking in the right direction. When he glanced, back, however, she was gone. "Holy shit," he whispered.

John had said that the night didn't hold sway over spirits, but he'd only seen a spirit during the day one other time, and that had been in the basement of a haunted house. Day and night were turned inside out in that environment.

"You okay, kid?" Chester asked, standing above Dean now, scanning the area around the building for whatever had sent his younger companion spinning.

"Yeah," Dean said, pushing himself to a slightly shaky stance. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry… I just… thought I saw… never mind."

If Gus hadn't already paid him—and if Chester hadn't already fed him—he would have walked off the job that minute, grabbed his dad and headed to the library. As it was, he had an afternoon's worth of work to finish.

He felt like a machine. Dumping his T-shirt into the same pile as his jacket, he joined Chester in finishing the walls of the second unit, laying in window wells, insulating walls, and nail-gunning plywood in place. Above their heads, other teams did the same and Dean couldn't help but wonder which would be the better place to be if the hastily-constructed flooring gave way: on it, or beneath it.

He left Chester at four, gathering his clothing and stripping off his tool belt. As he made his way through the west wing toward the main entrance, ignoring the occasional surprised glance at his bruised torso as he passed other workers, he thought about asking Gus if he'd seen the woman. When he hit the entrance, however, he realized that wouldn't be possible. Gus was standing on the street-side of the building, deep in conversation with the three remaining partners.

Dean dropped his tool belt next to the red tool box just as he'd done the day before and pulled his gray T-shirt on over his head, eyes on the foursome. Whatever they were discussing was definitely not sitting well with Gus and when his boss glanced up Dean caught his eye, asking with a raised eyebrow if he needed help.

Gus shook his head once, and focused his attention back on Jim Sutcliff. Dean headed for the Impala.

www

"You didn't have to come back for me," John greeted him when he walked through the door.

_So, we're back to that are we?_

"How else were you going to get to the appointment?" Dean asked.

"Wasn't planning on going," John replied, rolling his neck in a recognizable sign of weariness.

Dean wondered how much sleep his father had really been able to get on the motel bed, his leg aching like a son of a bitch.

"Not much physical therapy I can handle right now anyway," John continued, his tone somewhat bitter.

"So maybe they just check you out," Dean shrugged. "Make sure everything's okay."

"It's fine," John snapped. "You don't think I know if I'm fine?"

Dean sighed. _This is not going well_. "I'm not saying that," he placated, moving around John's chair to head into his bedroom and grab his dad's jacket. "Just saying… we're here, right? Can't go anywhere until you can get out of that chair. Permanently."

John muttered something unintelligible and Dean decided not to ask. He simply handed him his jacket. "You're not going to need this now," he said. "But who knows how cool it'll be when we leave."

"You don't have to wait with me," John grumbled, sounding almost panicked at the idea.

"I'm not," Dean said, opening the motel room door. "The library's across the street from the hospital."

"Oh."

Getting John from the chair to the front seat of the car wasn't nearly as difficult as lifting the collapsed wheelchair into the trunk of the Impala. It wasn't the size; that trunk was big enough to fit a body if need be. It was the lifting. The soft hum of healing Dean had experienced that morning had been whittled away by a day of manual labor.

He closed the trunk and wrapped his arm around his side, leaning forward, his forehead resting on his forearm as he caught his breath. He couldn't suppress the groan and wished he could remember if his dad's window was down or not.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, pulling in a bracing breath, and straightening up. He caught John's eyes in the side mirror watching him carefully. Dropping his arm and squaring his shoulders, Dean moved around to the front seat and eased himself behind the wheel.

"By the way," John said casually, tossing something into Dean's lap. "You forgot this."

Dean looked down. His cell phone. He picked it up and pocketed it. "Huh. Must've dropped it when I was getting the trash." He glanced askance at his dad. "You call any of my honey's?" he teased.

John looked away, staring out of the window. "No, but someone called you."

The way John said it had Dean going cold. _Sammy_… He struggled with what to say next.

"I didn't answer if that's what you're wondering." John said. "And before you check… he didn't leave a message."

"I'm sure he just…" _What, Dean? Why do you want to apologize, you chicken shit? You're not the one that kicked him out._ "I'll talk to him later on."

"You do that," John replied.

They drove part-way to the hospital in silence, Dean working out exactly how to bring up the fact that he saw a spirit in broad daylight.

"You know what you're looking for?" John asked, and Dean could practically hear his dad mentally clicking through a checklist of facts and gaps in their intel.

"Yes, Sir," Dean replied automatically.

"You need a cover story… something that won't raise suspicion about what you're after."

"I know."

"Make copies, as many pages as you can, of all pertinent information."

"Dad," Dean sighed. "I got this."

John was quiet a moment. "I know," he said reluctantly. "You're… you're a good hunter, Dean." He shook his head. "I just hate… not being part of this."

"I think I saw her today," Dean said suddenly, finding the reveal of information easier than attempting to convince his father that he _was_ a part of this. He never left it.

"Who?"

"The girl from '81."

John shifted stiffly, turning to face Dean as fully as his body would allow. "You saw a spirit? At the construction site?"

Dean nodded, recalling the moment with as much detail as possible. "Didn't believe it at first… y'know, until she vanished into thin air."

"No one else saw her?"

"Not that I could tell," Dean replied. He glanced once at John. "I'm not making this up."

"No, no," John shook his head. "I'm not saying that, just… it's really rare for a spirit to be visible during the day. Takes a lot of power."

Dean rolled his neck, feeling exhaustion begin it's coup on his energy reserves. "That's what I was afraid of."

They pulled into the hospital parking lot and Dean retrieved the wheelchair, helping his father settle in, noting the pinch of discomfort as he maneuvered his leg into the extender. He wondered how long they would make John get trussed up like that—and if it were really helping.

"You can go," John said, wheeling himself across the parking lot.

"You don't need me to, y'know… check you in or whatever?"

"I'm a grown man, Dean," John grumbled, sparing him a short, irritated glance. "I can check myself in."

Dean took a step back. "Okay, I'll… uh… just, y'know, call me when you get done."

"You just get that intel," John ordered, wheeling himself up to the automatic doors and disappearing inside.

"Yes, Sir," Dean muttered, watching him.

He turned, sighing, and headed toward the library, the pages from his father's journal tucked inside his back pocket. He'd managed to snake them as John was stubbornly wheeling himself out to the Impala, needing the cheat-sheet so neatly crafted by his meticulous Marine of a father to keep his facts straight.

As he crossed the empty street to the library, he saw that the small police station was now located one block down from the hospital. Scolding himself for not registering that before, he made a note to head inside and inquire about the arrest in '81 if he didn't get what he was after in the archives.

Formulating a cover story on the fly had never been a problem for Dean. It was making sure it would fit inside whatever stories his father and brother might've told that made him sweat. This time, however, there was no need for coordination. It was all on him. The bored-looking librarian could care less about the report he was following up on concerning the fire in 1981, or that he claimed he was from the Seattle area looking to write a big story about Brinnon.

"The archives are in the basement," she said, cracking her gum between her teeth. "You need a key."

Dean pressed his lips together, dropping his chin. "You think I could get that from you… Stacey?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "We close at eight."

"Understood."

"I give this key to you, you gotta _swear_ you won't keep me late."

_Or you'll do what, exactly?_ Dean wanted to ask, but he masked it with a smooth smile that he allowed to warm his eyes. "Cross my heart."

She sighed expressively. "Fine."

The lights in the basement archive room were fluorescent and flickered at regular intervals, clicking annoyingly as if invisible fingers consistently tapped on the glass. It didn't take him as long as he thought it would to pull up news papers from October of 1981. Coughing from the dust and choking back a decidedly girly scream as he flinched away from a large spider, he pulled out as many articles as he could find, surprised when the number turned out to be so small.

Retrieving the notes from John's journal and the pen he'd borrowed from Stacey's desk, he began to draw together the back story, as well as he could piece together. A woman by the name of Brooke Marcus, a loner by all accounts, had been accused of murdering her own son and was awaiting trial in Tacoma. The town of the article had her tried and convicted, Dean realized, his lips curled in a snarl of defense.

Reports from locals—some of whom he'd met either in person or had heard about from Gus—claimed that she'd always been a bit strange and some accused her of witchcraft, saying she was the reason their garden wasn't flourishing, or their cat had died, or that the weather was so unseasonably warm.

Two days after she'd been arrested, the local paper covered the fire that killed her on October 15th, expounding on the fact that Sheriff Sutcliff had managed to escape, rescuing one prisoner—a drunk 'sleeping it off'—but that, sadly, Brooke Marcus had perished in her cell. After her death, he found several articles crucifying her for her pagan beliefs and ritualistic adornments in several rooms of her house. Some quotes went so far as to say she deserved her death, convinced she'd committed murder to pacify her gods and had been punished.

He searched through several papers after that, going up through March of 1982, but could find nothing talking about the cause of the fire or any further investigation into Brooke's death. He abhorred witches, their practices, their methods, the fact that each one his family had come across had an apparent disrespect for the sanctity of human life.

But the idea of that woman being trapped in her small cell, unable to escape, knowing she was going to die burning… Dean shuddered, folding the papers methodically to banish the unwelcome feeling of claustrophobia.

A name caught his eye just as he started to close the last paper: Kwaiya.

"Huh," he muttered, peering closer.

…_boy found by a member of the local Quileute trip last fall will be attending a small missionary school next year. The boy, named Kwaiya by the tribe, had been beaten and has been determined to be unfit for public school education. Representatives of the Quileute's claim that Kwaiya is smart and capable of learning with specialized assistance. In one of his final acts as sheriff before retirement, Sheriff Roman Sutcliff approved the admittance of the boy into the missionary school saying, "In a town our size, this child belongs to all of us. It's our duty to see that he has every advantage."_

Kwaiya_, a Quileute word meaning _water_, will live with the tribe until he is old enough to care for himself. Investigation into his appearance met with dead ends last fall. "The boy appears happy with his home," Sheriff Sutcliff is reported as saying. "He's been through enough." As no one has come forward in the last six months claiming him as their own, it appears the boy is truly a child of the town…_

"Hey, mister!" Stacey called from above him. "It's almost eight!"

"Right," Dean replied, folding the paper and gathering his notes. "Be right there."

He took the stairs two at a time, slipping past Stacey as she flicked off the lights and pulled the heavy door shut.

"You know the new Sheriff, Stacey?"

"New?" Stacey glanced at him. "Sheriff Bonner's been here for like… twenty years."

"Right," Dean said again, nodding. "My mistake."

Tucking the papers into the interior pocket of his jacket, Dean pulled out his cell phone and called his father, exiting the library into the rapidly cooling night.

"'_Bout time_," John said.

"Sorry," Dean paused, looking from the hospital to the police station. "I was in the basement. No signal. You been waiting long?"

"_I'm fine_," John replied, sounding weary. "_They took the chair_."

"Yeah?"

"_Gave me a walkin' cast. Big mother, too_."

"You can _walk_ on it?"

"_Not too much_," John amended. "_Still hurts like a bitch, but I guess I got good bones. Took a scan. Said it's healing faster than they would have thought_."

"My dad," Dean grinned. "The over achiever." He heard John's whiskers scrape against the phone and imagined his father's smile.

"_Have to come back first of the week to practice how to walk in this thing_."

"What'll you do until then?"

"_Crutches_," John said, and Dean heard his voice shrug.

"Ah," he nodded. "I got some stuff."

"_Enough?_"

"Not quite, but I got an idea," Dean said, heading toward the police station. "You think you can sit tight for a few more minutes?"

"_Why?_"

Dean jogged across a section of lawn, not yet wet from the night's condensation. At the break of a darkened building was an alley that looked to wrap around the back of the police station. He heard voices coming toward him from the front of the station and instinctively ducked down the alley.

"I think the sheriff might know something," Dean replied. "He took over for Roman Sutcliff like… six months after the fire."

"_Think he knows what started the fire?"_ John asked.

"Or who," Dean replied. "And we need to find someone who knew Brooke Marcus."

"_Who?_"

"The dead chick," Dean clarified. "I'll give you two guesses what everyone said she was, but you're only going to need one."

"_Dean, I called a few guys. I was right. Even if she had been a witch, no spirit could have_—"

"Hey, dickhead!"

Dean stopped walking at the sound of the familiar voice, his spine tightening in reaction. "Shit," he muttered into the phone.

"_What is it?_"

Dean pivoted slowly, seeing Cole Lawson approaching him in the gloom of the alley.

"Hang on, Dad."

"What the hell are you doing here, _gaijin_?"

"_Who is that?_" John asked.

"Cole," Dean said, his mouth still near the phone. "Got your big brother to turn you loose, huh?"

He heard something rattle near Cole's waist and found his eyes darting there, trying to pick out what exactly the bigger man was reaching for and regretting leaving his .45 back at the motel room.

"I'm getting fuckin' tired of you screwing everything up," Cole snarled, stepping closer, light from the police station exposing the doubled-up handcuffs gripped in his meaty fist. "Don't think I haven't noticed how you showed up just a coupla days after they found Cody."

Dean frowned, having almost forgotten Cole had lost family in all of this.

"I'm real sorry about your nephew, man," Dean replied, taking a step back and thinking furiously how he was going to get to the knife he'd slipped into his boot by habit. "I'm just trying to figure out what's going on around here… what got those kids killed."

"He just disappeared," Cole continued, his voice thick with hatred. "Just gone. Then he turns up by the water. His eyes…"

Dean heard Cole swallow and took another step back.

"Think it's about time you just… disappeared."

"Dad," Dean said into the phone. "I'm gonna have to call you ba—" He didn't get to finish his sentence, dropping his phone as he reached up to block Cole's first swing.

www

John had started moving for the door the minute he'd heard the shift in Dean's voice. He'd been there when Dean had talked someone down—been damn impressed with his son's skills, too. His boy could read people and reach them in ways Sam's vulnerable eyes and sensitivity or John's brash approach simply couldn't. Dean _got_ them. And they responded to him.

But this… this was different. There was a tightness to Dean's voice as he addressed the other man in the alley. A feeling of being backed into a corner and having no exit strategy. John made it to the automatic doors, hindered by his aching leg and the awkward angle of his head pinning the cell phone to his shoulder, when he heard Dean start to say he'd call him back.

"Dean!" He yelled into the phone, startling two nurses as they walked into the hospital past him. "Dean!" His only response was the sound of an obvious struggle and someone swearing. He shut his phone, stuffed it into the front pocket of his jeans, and without thinking headed through the parking lot toward the police station.

He was huffing when he reached the other side of the road, his good leg trembled from his lopsided gait, his arms shook from the effort of keeping him balanced on the awkward crutches, and his lungs begged for respite. Eyes searching the darkness, he searched for any sign of his son, feeling fingers of panic reach out and tug at him.

"_Winchester!" _

The familiar bark of the drill sergeant caught him unaware and he actually jerked his head to the side. He's lost that voice somewhere in the melee of self-pity over the last few days. He'd lost his grip on his mission. But he had a different mission now: Dean was in trouble

"_Get your ass moving, soldier! We've got a man down!"_

"Where is he?" John whispered, his throat dry.

"_When your eyes can't be trusted, what do you do?"_

"Listen," John said, closing his eyes and forcing his body to go completely still.

"Son of a bitch!"

It was faint, winded, but it was Dean. John moved to his left, finding an alley, and hearing the scuffle and scramble of a struggle for dominance. He moved closer, working furiously through the possibilities of how best to step in and avoid getting either of them more hurt in the process. He saw the pair of fighters move through a beam of light streaming from a second floor window of the building next to them and wondered why no one else was coming to break up this altercation.

As he drew closer, he was momentarily caught by the sight of his son. Blood traced a narrow path down the side of Dean's face, finding its way into the corner of his eye and smearing down his neck. His body curved a bit as he automatically tried to protect his weakened side, but the sparring John had watched between Sam and Dean was nothing like what he was witnessing here.

Dean _was_ motion.

Cole Lawson had fifty pounds and several inches on him, but he was unskilled and fueled by rage. John had always taught his sons that anger in a fist fight would wind them faster than any movement. Their only advantage was to empty their minds of thought, their hearts of feeling, and think only of the motion. Dean blocked a heavy-armed punch and brought his other fist up in two quick jabs just under Cole's rib cage, twisting his blocking arm to grab the inside of Cole's elbow and spinning the man around and away.

John had started to lift a crutch, preparing to crack Cole over the back of the head when suddenly it was Dean in front of him. The fighters staggered to the end of the alley, a yellowish parking lamp spilling a cone shape of light onto the gravel lot in the back of the building and the tree line just beyond.

John wanted to call out, _needed_ to help, but the gravel surface that the alley emptied onto made it difficult for him to even keep his balance. He could see that Dean was weakening. He had stopped blocking punches and was now ducking, rolling away from jabs, keeping Cole just outside of his strike zone.

"Dean," John breathed, afraid to call out and distract him.

When the figure emerged from the tree line, John thought at first one of the police had joined the fray. When the man stepped fully into the light, however, he saw the misshapen, scarred face and knew this was the person Dean had referred to as Kwaiya. John's eyes darted from the large man dressed in buckskin and flannel to his son. Dean had seen Kwaiya emerge and his attention had wavered, giving the lumbering Cole an opening.

John saw something silver flash in the pale light.

"Dean!" John shouted, drawing his son's attention back to the fight just as Cole swung a heavy fist and cracked Dean hard along the jaw.

John stepped forward, tottering on his crutches as Dean's head snapped back and to the left, blood flying from his mouth, his body going loose for a moment. John was sure he would be felled by that hit, and found himself breathing once more when Dean staggered, but didn't fall.

Lifting his face and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Dean stared at Cole. "You really shouldn't have done that," he said, his words muffled.

John watched him spit out a mouthful of blood and moved forward once more.

"Oh, yeah?" Cole panted. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Not me," Dean said. "Him."

Something about the expression on his face caused Cole to pale and John watched the thick-faced man turn slowly, seeing Kwaiya standing just behind him.

"Leave," Kwaiya rumbled. "Or I do something about it."

Cole looked back at Dean, then John saw his eyes dart up to the backside of the police station. Glancing over, John realized that someone had been watching the whole fight from inside the station. He took in the observer's ruddy complexion, gray comb-over, and bulb-like nose just a shade too big for his hang-dog face.

He memorized this man who'd watched the fight happen. Who'd _let_ the fight happen.

Cole seemed to wilt a bit under the gaze of the man in the window, then looked back at Dean, a hand snaking around to hold his obviously-wounded side. Without another word, he turned headed back down the alley, sparing John a passing glance and flinching away from the heat John put in his glare. John moved forward on his crutches until he was within an arm length of his son.

Dean was listing to the side; John wasn't sure how he was still on his feet.

"So," Dean said, holding his side, his tongue darting out to dab at a split in his bottom lip. "That… was Cole Lawson."

John kept his eyes on Dean's, searching for a sign of how much more his son could take. "You're right," he nodded. "Douche bag."

"Fuckin' mean right hook, though," Dean said, his voice slightly breathy. John watched him reach up a trembling hand and press it against the cut on his forehead. "I, uh… whoa."

He seemed to sway and John reached out, curling his fingers in his son's sleeve as Dean blinked his eyes wide, as if trying to focus.

"Dean?"

"I just… I need a minute." Dean's voice wavered and he took a step forward. "Holy shi…"

When Dean's knees disappeared, John instinctively reached out with his other hand, looking to catch him. His crutches caught him up, the fabric of Dean's sleeve slipping from John's fingers as Dean crumbled. Before Dean hit the ground, a large arm tucked beneath him. John blinked in surprise; Kwaiya had been so quiet he'd forgotten the big man was still standing there. As John watched, the man bent, slipping his other arm beneath Dean's legs and lifted him into his arms.

Kwaiya shifted once and Dean rolled limply until his head rested against the big man's bicep, his left arm dangling free.

"I got him," Kwaiya declared, and began to walk back down the alley toward the hospital.

John trailed behind, propelled on tired arms, dragging a stubbornly painful leg, spurred by one very basic need: to be with his kid. His boy was hurt, and he had to fix it. He winced in the darkness as he moved forward, keeping his eyes on Kwaiya's lumbering figure and the sight of Dean's head hanging limply over the edge of the big man's arms.

www

His knuckles were wet.

It was the first thing he was aware of. He felt like his hand was lying in a bowl of water. For a fraction of a second, he wondered if their prank wars had begun once more.

Until he remembered that Sam wasn't there.

Until he remembered he'd just gotten the shit beaten out of him by Biff Tannen.

"There you are," said a too-cheery female voice as Dean worked to pry his eyes open. "Thought you were going for a repeat performance."

"Huh?" Dean muttered.

"Well, it was around this time last week you were in my ER."

Dean blinked, bringing the woman into focus. "Caroline?"

"I'm flattered," she smiled, her soft face creasing in a manner he'd always found appealing. It showed her story, that she'd lived. "Though it _has_ only been just over a week."

"This time it wasn't my fault," Dean replied, closing his eyes again.

"Last time it was?" Caroline said, and Dean felt the wetness on his hands once more.

He turned his head slowly, peering down at the side of his bed. His knuckles were scraped raw. Caroline ran a small alcohol pad over the abrasions. He wondered dimly why he didn't feel an accompanying sting.

"How's the head?"

_Dad_.Dean felt his body sigh as he looked away from Caroline. John stood just inside the curtained area, leaning on his crutches, his face drawn and pale, but a smile ghosting his lips.

"It's still on," Dean replied, grimacing as the absent pain chose that moment to make an appearance. "Barely."

"He been awake long?" John asked Caroline.

"Just opened those gorgeous eyes a minute before you got back," Caroline said, smiling at Dean as she stood.

"Where'd you go?" Dean asked, flinching as Caroline began to clean the cut on his forehead.

"Made sure your friend got out of here," John said.

"My friend?"

"Kwaiya brought you into the ER," Caroline said, her voice carrying an unfamiliar weight. "Put you on this bed and tried to leave, but—"

"Couple of doctors tried to hassle him," John muttered.

"They were just concerned," Caroline countered defensively. "They thought he'd hurt you."

"You set them straight?" Dean asked, his eyes on his father as John moved further into the small room.

"Yeah," John nodded, grimacing as he eased down into the hard, plastic chair situated next to the small ER gurney.

Dean watched him, remembering. "You were gonna take that punk out with a crutch?" he asked incredulously.

"You saw that, huh?"

"You think about how you were gonna stay standing up with just one crutch?"

John pinned Dean with his dark eyes. "Kid," he said tiredly, "all I thought about was killing the son of a bitch that was wailing on you."

Dean closed his eyes, rolling his head to face forward. When he opened his eyes again, Caroline was leaning over him with a syringe. "Whoa! What the hell is that?"

"Calm down," Caroline said softly. "It's just Lidocaine. A local anesthetic. Unless you want to feel these stitches."

"I think I'd rather feel the stitches," Dean mumbled as he felt the tip of the needle pinch as it slid under his skin. After several moments, though, a cool, almost wooden feeling took over his forehead and the side of his face. "Weird…"

"Not that you two aren't a treat for the eyes," Caroline said as she worked on Dean's wound, "but I've gotta say I'm sorry to see you in my ER again so soon."

"Wasn't my idea," John said. "Wouldn't have gotten this far if your police department did their job."

Caroline frowned, concentrating on her stitching. "Sheriff Bonner's a good man. Shoulda seen things when Roman Sutcliff ran the town."

"He watched the whole fight," John said. "Didn't do a thing to stop it."

Dean watched Caroline's face pinch close. "I can't believe that."

John described who he'd seen. "Watched Cole lay into my boy with some kind of brass knuckles and didn't raise a finger."

"Handcuffs," Dean said, the movement of his mouth feeling odd in his numb face. "He had handcuffs on him."

"That sounds like Joe Lawson," Caroline revealed. "Sheriff Bonner was called out to Gus Spencer's construction site tonight."

Dean started to turn and share a glance with John, but Caroline held his head still, frowning down at him. His brief motion was enough, though. John picked up the non-verbal cue.

"You said things were a mess when Sutcliff ran the joint?" John said, drawing Caroline back through her memory.

"Oh, my, yes," Caroline sighed, placing a gauze patch over her handiwork and cleaning the rest of the blood off the side of Dean's face and mouth as she talked. "I grew up around here, had both of my children right here in this hospital. But there was a time when I considered packing them up and running. My husband… well, the cancer took him," Caroline paused her ministrations for a moment, then continued to examine Dean. "This hurt? How about this?"

"'M fine," Dean muttered, not wanting her to probe too deeply along his ribs. He knew they weren't cracked further, but he'd not done them any favors and the muscles running along his side felt like they were burning. His entire body felt lit up from their bone-deep heat.

"The doctor'll be in to check you for concussion," Caroline said.

"Seriously," Dean said, trying to infuse his voice with strength he didn't feel. "I just need a few aspirin. I'll be okay."

"Sorry, hon," Caroline smiled. "You lost consciousness. I know you want out of here, but you're not leaving until I'm satisfied."

Dean sighed, too tired to argue.

"Why'd you want to leave?" John pressed as Caroline gathered her supplies.

"Well, you're new here, so you wouldn't have any way of knowing, but," she paused in her actions, her shoulders falling, both hands full and resting on the side of Dean's bed, "a woman died in that building Gus Spencer is remodeling. She… she burned to death."

"Brooke Marcus," Dean interjected.

Caroline flinched, surprise turning her face slack. "Yes! How in the world did you know that?"

"I've been working at the site this week—" Dean started.

"You're working construction?" Caroline almost squeaked. "With cracked ribs?"

"—_and_," Dean continued, "I've been hearing some things… about witches?"

"Oh, what a bunch of horse crap. 'Scuse my language," Caroline huffed, continuing to clean up around Dean's bed. "That poor woman… she never got a break. Her parents died when she was just a teenager and she worked two jobs to keep her home. I worked with her at the diner one summer. Sweet, sweet girl."

"So… not a witch then?" John asked.

Caroline frowned, hesitating. "She had her own ways… her own ideas about things. Wore a pentagram on a chain around her neck, for example. But she said it was for protection."

"It is," Dean and John replied in unison.

"She doted on that boy, though," Caroline sighed. "We were pregnant together, but I was married. Able to leave the diner when my daughter was born. Brooke… she just kept right on working."

"No husband?" John asked.

Caroline shook her head. "She never said who the father was. We all had our guesses, though. Brooke… she was a pretty one. Put a man's head on a swivel just by walking down the street."

"What happened to her son?" Dean asked.

Caroline picked up Dean's chart, biting her bottom lip. "No one really knows. She came to Roman Sutcliff and said that Andrew was missing, but the next thing we all knew, they were saying they'd found enough physical evidence in her home to prove she'd killed him."

"But… you didn't believe it," John guessed.

Caroline tilted her head, her eyes turning soft. "Andrew was her world. You don't love someone that much and kill them."

"Could've been an accident," Dean hedged, hearing the slur in his words. "She panicked, buried the body, reported him missing to cover it up."

"That's what Sutcliff and his pals wanted us to believe," Caroline shrugged. She turned, her hand on the curtain that separated Dean's bed from the rest of the ER, and then paused. "You know, until you brought this up, I never put it together, but… those kids that died… they were all grandkids of that group."

"Joe Lawson, Roman Sutcliff, and Frank Teller," John provided.

"Yeah." Caroline shook her head. "Guess karma doesn't play favorites." She shifted her eyes to Dean's battered face. "You just hang tight. I'll get you out of here soon as I can."

When Caroline stepped away, Dean sank back into the bed, letting his eyes fall closed. He felt stretched thin, hollowed out. He was absolutely certain that if someone touched him, he'd break into a thousand pieces and there wouldn't be anyone left that knew how to put him back together again.

"You okay, Son?"

"Sure."

"You look like shit."

"Aren't you the morale booster."

There was a lengthy pause and Dean found himself drifting, sinking in an ebb of motionlessness, the pain in his face masked by the Lidocaine.

"We could leave," John said softly.

Dean flinched, his father's voice catching him on the edge of sleep, yanking him back into the now with an unexpected possibility.

"What?" He worked to open his eyes, to focus on his dad's face. "What did you say?"

"I don't have to be here to heal up," John continued. "We could take it slow, head south."

"Leave?"

The edges of John's face were blurry, as if someone had taken an eraser and scuffed out the clean lines that so clearly defined his father as a force to be reckoned with.

"Brooke died on October 15th, right?" John asked.

"Yeah."

"That's Monday," John revealed. "It's just going to get worse."

"And… you want to leave?" Dean repeated, the word sounding foreign to him. It didn't even fit in his mouth properly, leaving his lips parted.

John bowed his head and Dean seemed to lose him for a moment as a gray curtain fell over his vision. Then John spoke and Dean latched on to the sound, finding his father again inside of it.

"I don't want you to get hurt anymore. Not over this. Not… not when I can't help you."

"You almost crutched a guy for me, Dad," Dean reminded him.

"But I couldn't move fast enough, Dean," John countered. "I couldn't step in, stop it. Hell, I couldn't even carry you out of there."

"Dad," Dean tried, finding it hard to connect the words crashing against each other in his head with his sluggish mouth. "We—"

"Dean," Caroline stepped quickly into his alcove, the curtain parting behind her and exposing the suddenly active ER. "It's going to be awhile before the doctor can get to you. He's authorized pain meds. You want pills, right? No needle?"

"Yes," Dean replied. "What's goin' on?"

"I, um, I'm not at liberty to say…"

Dean pushed up stiffly on his elbow when he caught sight of a familiar face standing just behind Caroline, peering into the next alcove over. "Gus?"

Gus jerked at the sound of his name, and Caroline stepped back, allowing him access to Dean's area. "Dean? What the hell?"

"You okay?" Dean asked. "What's going on?"

Gus blinked owlishly, leaning one shoulder against the wall. "God, kid, you look like shit."

"Thanks a lot," Dean said, holding his side as he searched for a comfortable position. "You should see the other guy."

Gus' face darkened as understanding seemed to dawn. "If it's Cole Lawson, I hope you destroyed him."

_You and me both_, Dean thought.

"What's going on?" John demanded.

Gus seemed to sink in on himself a bit. "Jim Sutcliff is dead."

"What?" Dean exclaimed. "How?"

"Nobody's… exactly sure."

"I just saw him," Dean said. "At the site—just before I left."

"We had a meeting. Everyone left but… apparently he came back," Gus sighed. "I don't know why… maybe looking for something? Bonner got an anonymous tip and called me up on his way to the site. Found Jim just behind the west wing."

"Found him how?" John encouraged.

Gus rubbed his face. "I told them about your salt line; tried to show them how it had kept whatever was… was working against us… away."

"Let me guess," Dean sighed, sagging a little as he spoke. "They didn't believe you."

"Two of them wanted to fire me," Gus said with a rueful smile. "Terry Bowing convinced them to keep me on. Hell… now I wish they'd just laughed me out of town."

"Gus," Dean said softly, "how did you find Jim?"

"He was half in, half out of the building, and his legs… it looked like… well it looked like…"

"Just spit it out, man," John barked, making Gus jump.

"It looked like he was running away from something—running toward the building, away from the water. His hands… were pinned to the floor. With nails. And he'd kicked the salt like all to hell."

Dean and John exchanged a glance.

"When you were there, did you see… anything?" Dean asked.

"You mean aside from one of my bosses crucified on the floor of his own building?" Gus asked. "No."

"Spencer!" called a voice Dean recognized as Sheriff Bonner.

"I gotta go," Gus sighed. He looked back at Dean. "Rest up, kid. Don't worry about coming back. This project… it's done. I can't take anymore blood on my hands." With that he stepped from the room, Caroline behind him.

Dean looked back at John. "You still wanna leave?"

John swallowed, and Dean felt his father's eyes roam his face, taking in his bruises, the stitches, the swelling around his eye. "You can't take much more, Dean."

"I might surprise you," Dean said, straightening as much as his body would allow.

"Well," John sighed, using his crutches to pull himself to his feet. "You're the one on the front line, kid. This is your call."

Dean met his father's eyes, his gaze unwavering, exposing none of the weakness he felt eating away at his resolve. He felt the weight of those words like a mantle. "All right, then. We've got work to do."

* * *

**a/n**: Thanks for reading! More to come soon—and things are going to get a bit worse before they get better…

**Playlist**:

_Wish You Were Here_ by Pink Floyd (One of my favorite late-night songs. Ever.)

_Saturday Night Special_ by Lynyrd Skynyrd

_Darkness at the Edge of Town _by Bruce Springsteen

_In My Life_ by The Beatles

_I Am the Highway_ by Audioslave

_Would?_ by Alice in Chains


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer/ Spoilers**: See Chapter 1

**a/n**: **Terry**, thanks for what you do. Not just this, but everything. And stop rolling your eyes.

Thank you all for reading this story. A special thanks to those of you who offer me the gift of your review. You help me remember that it all matters. You also compel me to think about my purpose for writing this story…

Terry said in her Chapter 4 review, _we read for the PAIN_. I know that for me, that's true. I want a _story—_something that makes the pain make sense—but I also want to indulge in the interesting phenomenon of the (not-so-) secret thrill that comes from bashing our hero(es) to bits. For me, though, it's not simply the pain that curls my toes, it's watching our hero fight through it, battle against it, and emerge, victorious and even more heroic on the other side.

I've had a couple of you ask me why I'm so mean to Dean, or want me to stop hurting him. I know I've put John and Dean—especially Dean—through the wringer in this story, but it's done for the sake of the realization I'm hoping the characters have when all is said and done. It's done with purpose. That's why the name of the story is so important. This is about the _wearing_ and _tearing_ of John and Dean Winchester and the people they become as a result. So, I feel the need to warn you… in this chapter and the following, there is more pain to come… but also resolution and healing.

Because the pain means nothing if there's no comfort, and the comfort is empty if there's no hope.

Thanks for reading!

* * *

_We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. _

_~Kenji Miyazawa_

www

There was a moment in the night when the darkness dug deep, as if physically clinging to the earth in rebellion of the coming dawn. It was that moment John always dreaded. It was that moment, he knew, Mary had been taken from him.

If he slept through the night—which was rare—he always woke with a lingering feeling that he'd missed something. Like an oven left on, or a door left unlocked. He would scout the place where he and his boys were living, his body curved into a predator's prowl, checking salt lines, securing weapons, reassuring himself with the tandem breathing of his sons.

The first time he'd slept through the darkest hour after Sam had walked out on them, John hadn't been able to get back to sleep for three days. He'd started on his rounds, making sure everything was as it should be, and had stopped at the foot of Dean's bed, staring at his sleeping son, listening to the sound of only one breath, feeling the invisible beat of only one heart.

He never finished. Months later, he still felt as if he were securing their perimeter, ensuring their safety. He wondered, sometimes, if he would ever be able to keep his boys safe again.

Dean slept tense.

Watching him now, John could feel worry, awareness, roll from his son in waves that wrapped around John and amplified his impotent frustration. Dean's body was tilted slightly to the side in the narrow hospital bed, unconsciously protecting his tender side, and his face was turned away. A hand—knuckles scuffed and scraped, a testimony to his struggle to survive—lay draped in deceptive casualness over a jean-clad hip and it's mate was at his side, palm up, fingers curved inward as if ready to curl into a fist at a moment's notice.

The pain pills Caroline had offered were powerful and allowed Dean the reprieve he wouldn't willingly take on his own. She'd told John they could stay in the ER alcove as long as they needed; Dean wasn't injured enough to be admitted, but both John and the nurse agreed that not having to move right away would be a good thing. Caroline had brought an ice pack wrapped in a soft towel and, after Dean had finally succumbed to exhaustion, John placed the pack on his son's bruised face, hoping the coolness would ease the painful-looking swelling around Dean's mouth and eye.

And then, he'd simply watched him sleep.

"Elroy?"

The small hospital had grown quiet as the night drew on, staff reduced to the minimum, with the exception of the ER. Here, John saw, it seemed that the darker the night, the busier the people. He'd been listening to the conversations that carried on around him—as if the curtain that separated Dean's alcove from the rest of the facility was somehow soundproof—about the death of Jim Sutcliff.

"Elroy? Mr. MacGillicuddy?"

Caroline's shift had ended and John had pulled the curtain half-way, feeling safer when he could see who was approaching, see the night through the exterior windows, see the tight expressions of worry or weariness on the faces of the hospital staff.

A hand was suddenly resting on his shoulder and a voice—the same voice he now realized he'd been hearing call an unfamiliar name—said softly, "John?"

Cringing inwardly, realizing his mistake, John glanced up into the gentle eyes of Dr. Rice. "Hey, Doc."

Her lips—painted a deep red to match her brightly colored shirt—pressed into a knowing smile. "Caroline told me you were down here."

"Not me," John said, nodding in the direction of his sleeping son. "My boy."

Dr. Rice closed her eyes briefly, conceding his correction. "How's the leg?" she asked, her dark eyes darting to the thick, padded cast he'd propped up at the edge of Dean's bed.

"Been better," John shrugged.

"I'm glad to see you staying off of it," she said, stepping slightly away from him. "May I?"

"Knock yourself out," John replied, watching as she carefully pulled the straps of the cast free of their buckles and Velcro and peered at the healing skin beneath.

"You heal remarkably well," she said, closing up the cast securely.

Dean twitched in his sleep, his hands bouncing slightly as if in reaction to a threat.

"Hopefully your son has inherited this trait," she whispered, stepping close to Dean.

"Careful," John said, automatically. He didn't want her to wake him; they had a heavy few days ahead of them, and Dean needed all the rest he could get.

Dr. Rice nodded, narrowing her eyes as she examined the bruising, adjusting the ice pack, then stepping away. "Has he been checked for concussion?"

John nodded. "He's fine. Just exhausted."

Crossing her arms, Dr. Rice met John's eyes. "I want to know what's going on with you, John."

John looked away, out to the movement of the hospital staff in the center of the ER. "Nothing you need to worry about, Doc."

"I may not look it," Dr. Rice continued, stepping closer, "but I've lived through some stories that would shake most people to their bones." John glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes. "But not you, I suspect."

"You never know," John said, purposely vague.

He couldn't be sure how old the good doctor really was. Her smooth, cocoa-colored skin hid the normally tell-tale lines that so often tracked the movement of time through a person's life. However, John conceded glancing at Dean, it wasn't so much how time _passed_ a person as it was how time _impacted_ them that left traces.

"I hear things," Dr. Rice said, crossing her arms once more and resting a hip against the foot of Dean's bed. "I hear things like you using a fake name. I hear things like you and your son being involved in whatever is tearing up this town. I hear that you're a hero, that you're a menace, that you're the reason so many people have died."

"That's not true," John said, unable to continue to keep quiet at the thought that the deaths of those children could be put on them—on Dean. "We had nothing to do with—"

"Then _tell me_ what is going on with you," Dr. Rice said, her voice dropping, her lips tightening with the intensity she inserted into her words.

John looked up at her, his face blank, his eyes dangerous. He knew exactly the level of venom to fill his gaze with to back a person off. He wanted her to be careful; he didn't want to scare her.

Dr. Rice sighed. "The only reason I agreed to this cast, _John_," she said, her eyebrow bouncing up knowingly as she used his given name, "was because I was afraid of you playing hero in that other one and damaging your bones to the point they couldn't be repaired."

John pressed his lips forward, keeping his voice low as he caught Dean twitching again. "So what you're saying is, you don't think we're killers."

Dr. Rice rolled her eyes. "No, I don't think you're killers. But you're also not—"

"Mr. Winchester?"

John looked over quickly at the sound of Gus Spencer's voice. He frowned fiercely at the man and watched Gus' almond-shaped eyes flick from John up to Dean's recumbent form, then back.

"Sorry," Gus whispered. "Can I… uh… can I talk to you?"

"I'm not done here, John," Dr. Rice interjected.

John took a breath. He wanted everyone away from Dean—_now_. He pointed at Gus. "Go to the waiting area. I'll meet you there." Gus nodded, tipped a two-fingered salute to Dr. Rice, and left. John looked at his doctor. "If we make it out of this, I promise to come clean with you, Doc. Until then… the less you know the better."

"What if I can _help_ you?" Dr. Rice said, helping John pull his leg from the edge of Dean's bed and handing him his crutches.

John breathed carefully through the slow roll of heated pain that rippled from his toes to his teeth as his leg changed elevation. "If you can help," he said, glancing at her, "then you'll know it."

He glanced once more at Dean, then started out of his alcove toward the waiting area when a thought stopped him. "Hey, uh, Doc?"

Dr. Rice turned to face him.

"About my name…" The last thing he needed was for the hospital to get wise to his insurance scam before they left town.

Dr. Rice looked down, dropped her arms, then lifted her dark eyes to his. "Keep that leg elevated as much as you can. Do _not_ walk on it before Monday." Her eyes scanned the myriad of computers and life-saving equipment situated in the middle of the ER in a type of organized chaos. "And as far as the name is concerned, you are Elroy MacGillicuddy, but everyone calls you John."

John's mouth tugged up in a brief, appreciative grin. "Thanks, Doc."

"Take care of yourself, John," Dr. Rice said, glancing over her shoulder at Dean. "And of your boy."

"Will do," John nodded, waiting for her to leave, then made his way through the double-doors to the nearly-abandoned waiting room where Gus was busy pacing.

"Hey," Gus greeted, stopping his endeavor to wear a new path in the carpet when he saw John. He'd been chewing nervously on the calloused flesh at the edge of his thumb, and his eyes had a hunted, suspicious cadence to their scan of the room behind and around John. "Thanks for, uh… y'know."

John leaned heavily on his crutches, more tired than he cared to admit, and regarded Gus. "What's this about?"

Gus' eyes darted toward the doors that led to the ER. "I wanted to talk to Dean, but—"

"No," John said, his tone harsher than he'd intended. "Just leave him be for now."

"Yeah," Gus nodded. "He looked pretty roughed up."

John swallowed, resisting the instinctual need to quietly berate himself for not being able to protect his son from further harm when he'd been _right there_. "You said you needed to talk," John encouraged him.

Gus licked his lips, then crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his fingers beneath his arms as if to keep them still. "You're gonna think I'm crazy," he prefaced.

John couldn't stop his quick, tired grin. "I doubt that."

"Yeah, okay," Gus nodded. "Dean did say it was a family business…"

John sighed, easing himself down onto one of the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. Using his crutch, he maneuvered another chair in front of him. Gus saw what he was trying to do and helped him position the chair, gently lifting John's casted leg and setting it carefully on the cushioned seat.

"Thanks," John said, relief at the release of pressure on his leg slipping through his voice. "Now sit down and start at the beginning."

Gus sat, shifting his chair so that he could look at John without turning his head. "I, uh… I think I might've seen a…" he licked his lips nervously, "ghost."

John nodded, keeping his eyes on Gus' face. When he didn't speak, Gus laughed nervously and shook his head.

"See? I figured that's what you'd do," he said, rubbing the palms of his hands on his pant legs. "I'm losing my mind, aren't I?"

"Hardly," John replied. "Tell me what you saw."

Gus rubbed two fingers across his forehead. "Earlier today, the group came to talk with me—"

"Which group?"

"The partners… well, all but Jake Teller, of course."

John nodded, flicking his fingers forward in an invitation to continue.

"They wanted… I don't know, a… report or guarantee," Gus sighed, dropping his hand to his lap, his eyes following, "something I can't give them. Guess they thought I'd brought Dean in as a… ringer or something."

"A what?"

Gus looked up at him. "There's been a lot of talk around town about why he's here—guess why you're here, too. Timing's too convenient for some people, what with the kids dying and then Jake… and let me tell you this town is scapegoat happy. All they need is a viable story—don't matter much if it's true."

John frowned. "So, what, they think… _Dean's_ responsible for the deaths in this town and that _you _brought him in?"

Gus shrugged. "That's what they were, y'know, insinuating."

"How does that make sense," John all-but growled, "when what he did kept people from dying?"

"Yeah, well," Gus leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, "that's what I was trying to tell them today. I told them about the salt lines and how since he did his… whatever he did… people have been safe and work's been getting done. But then… I went too far."

John lifted a brow, scratching distractedly at the stubble framing his jaw line.

"I told them I thought the site was haunted."

"You did, huh," John muttered. "Dean tell you that?"

Gus shook his head, studying his hands. "My, uh… my mother."

John frowned. "Your… _mother_ told you the site was haunted?"

Gus sat back with a heavy sigh and looked up at the ceiling. "My mother is Japanese. She… knows things. Most people think she's crazy, but she's just… she keeps with the old ways. My father died when I was away at college and she was alone. She… coped, I guess you could say, by finding meaning in a lot of the lore her people created and shared."

"Lot to be learned from Japanese folklore," John allowed, twisting his wedding ring in an absent-minded gesture, his mind tracking through a tangled maze of facts.

"_It's called a Kappa… It's a Japanese water spirit."_

"_Kinda geographically confused, isn't it?"_

"_Washington's on the Pacific coast. Not like spirits are bound by borders."_

"_Think someone summoned it?"_

"_Maybe. Could be it hitched a ride with a fishing trolley. I don't give a damn. All I know is, it's here, and it's killed four kids already."_

"_How does it kill?"_

"_Drowns its victims… drains their blood and goes after the soft tissues…" _

"_How do _we_ kill it?"_

"_There's a… bone-like growth filled with water on its head. When the basin is dry, it dies. So, we keep it on land long enough so that it suffocates on air."_

"_Oh, great… We're going up against some kung-fu water spirit that we have to trap on land. This is going to be super fun."_

"John?"

John looked up, shaking his head slightly and refocusing on Gus, belatedly realizing the man had continued to talk to him. "Sorry," he said. "Just… thinking."

"Anyway," Gus said, "I told her about the salt lines and she just kinda… nodded. Like she'd been waiting for something like this. Said that that salt was to keep the spirit out."

"Smart lady," John replied. "Gus," he asked, keeping his tone even, his eyes down, "does your mom have any… connection with this building site?"

Gus huffed slightly. "She doesn't come into town. Ever. Says the town killed my Dad and it's killing me. She wants nothing to do with it."

"What about with… the partners?" John pressed.

"She knew their fathers, sure," Gus nodded. "But she never met these guys."

"She talk with anyone in the town other than you?"

Gus pulled back slightly, a line of worry dividing his brows. "Only person would be Kwaiya, but then… y'know, everyone knows Kwaiya in some way. Why?"

John shook his head, rolling his bottom lip against his teeth as he thought. The outside door opened and a dark-haired, slim girl dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a gray and white flannel shirt, it's too-long sleeves rolled up to her elbows, came inside. She glanced at the empty admittance desk, then over to the waiting room. Relief and recognition crossed her face when she saw Gus.

"Gus!" she called, hurrying forward.

John knew without being told that this was Marissa. Her features were finely drawn, smooth skin poured over perfect bones and lips that held just the right amount of pout, but it was her eyes that gave her away. The blue caused John to do a double-take as she crouched at the side of the contractor's chair.

"Marissa," Gus exclaimed, turning sideways. "What are you—"

"I heard about Jim," she said, her eyes filling slightly. She blinked the tears away before they fell. "Is it true? He's… he's dead?"

Gus rested a large hand over hers and John took in the contrast of skin tones.

"I'm sorry," Gus nodded. "I… I didn't realize you were close."

Marissa stood quickly, pulling her hand away. "I'm not—wasn't. It's just… the kids, and then my brother and now Jim…"

Gus looked down. "I know. It's… it's a lot to take—"

"Don't you think this is enough?"

"What do you mean?" John spoke up, drawing Marissa's eyes.

She swallowed, put off-balance by the realization that she'd interrupted something. "Uh… who are you?"

"Marissa," Gus said. "This is Dean's dad."

"Oh," Marissa's eyes tracked down John's elevated leg. "Oh," she repeated, as if putting puzzle pieces together in her mind. "Are you… why are you here?"

John took in the worried lines that drew down her eyes, turning her mouth into a low frown. Worry not for him, but for is son.

"Cole and Dean kinda got into it—" Gus started.

"Shit!" Marissa spat, starting to turn away. "Is he okay?"

John was confused for a moment who Marissa was referring to.

"Dean'll be fine," John reassured her.

"I hope he killed that bastard," Marissa said, her lip turning up in a snarl. The venom in her voice matched the coldness that had seeped into her eyes.

Gus shook his head. "Haven't seen Cole, but—"

"He's not dead," John said. "What did you mean, _this is enough_?"

Marissa looked at John, her lower lip quivering. "All of it. All these deaths… just to rebuild that damn building? I can't believe whatever they're trying to hide is worth… all of this…"

She looked away and John ran his tongue along his teeth, weighing his options.

"Can I go see Dean?" Marissa asked.

"He's sleeping," John said, distractedly.

"I won't wake him," Marissa said, watching for permission.

John nodded, and as Marissa walked away, he sat forward, pinning Gus with serious eyes. "No more bullshit, man. I want it all. Now."

Gus rubbed his face, then bowed his head, addressing the floor as if sharing eye contact with John was too much to bear. "I told them—the partners—about… about the salt. And the ghost. I thought Matt was going to have a heart attack. Terry looked like he was afraid I'd gone crazy or something. And Jim… he shut me down so fast…" Gus shook his head. "When Bonner called me out to the site, I have to admit… I never saw this coming. We were making progress, y'know? Real progress. I had the drywall done in the lower portion of the east wing, unit three. Painters had their equipment set up in there. Upper floors were getting close in units three and two…"

"So you got to the site," John said, pulling the contractor back on track.

"Bonner went in through the front—unit one—and I went around the back. All I could think was that someone had stolen the painting equipment or… y'know, something… _easy_ like that." Gus sat back, but didn't lift his eyes. "Bonner found Jim, and I heard him call out to me, but before I could get over to him, I, uh… I thought I saw Matt Lawson running away from the building. Toward the water. I heard his boat a few seconds later."

"You saw someone running away from a murder scene?"

Gus nodded.

"Did you tell Bonner?"

Gus shook his head.

"Why the hell not?"

"I couldn't be sure, y'know? I… I mean, what would _Matt_ gain by killing Jim? They were partners!"

A dozen possibilities skidded through John's mind as he watched the younger man struggle with logic that didn't meet up for him.

"You went back there," John guessed, thinking of the time between Gus' announcement that Jim Sutcliff had been killed and now.

"I had to," Gus nodded. "I circled around back—just the same way I did before—and Matt was there again, only this time… it looked like he was digging."

"Digging?"

Gus nodded. "He was digging like the devil himself was watching. I started to go over there… I didn't know what I was going to say but I had to say _something_… and then I… I saw it."

"The ghost," John supplied.

Gus nodded and John noticed sweat beading on the man's upper lip, his hands running in a nervous path along the tops of his legs. "It was a woman. I couldn't see the face, but she had dark hair."

"Where was it?"

"Inside the building—in unit one."

"Where the jail used to be," John said. Gus nodded in confirmation. "What happened next?"

"I couldn't move," Gus said. "But… Matt looked up and… he saw her and… kinda fell backwards. He dropped the shovel and ran—toward the water again." Gus took a breath and looked at John. "And then she was gone. Like she'd never been there."

"Did you go see what he was digging?"

"Hell no, man," Gus shook his head, his voice trembling with a nervous laugh. "I got the hell outta there. Came straight here. Only person I could figure wouldn't lock me up was Dean. And, well, I guess… you."

"I need to see what he was digging," John said. "If it was a grave, this could all be done tonight."

"What?" Gus blinked at him.

"We've been assuming Brooke Marcus burned to death in the jail fire. But if there's a grave—with bones—and the remodeling of the building has disturbed that grave, then we could banish her spirit and be done with all of this tonight."

John was speaking quickly, not looking at Gus, his mind seeing a path, a plan, a solution. _He_ could end this, now, and without any further damage to his son. He could step back into his role, finish the hunt, let Dean heal as he should have been able to do back in Arizona. He looked at Gus, his eyes burning.

"I need you to take me to that spot."

"When?"

"Now," John pushed the chair away with his good leg and lowered his other slowly to the ground, reaching for his crutches.

"What about Dean?"

"Dean needs to rest," John grunted as he used the crutches to pull himself to his feet. "He doesn't need to know about this." He moved forward, toward the hospital entrance, looking over his shoulder at Gus. "I need you to get me some things," he said.

"Let me guess," Gus said, hurrying forward to open the door. "Salt?"

"Among other things."

"You really think we can end this tonight?"

His son's voice suddenly screamed in his head and John flinched with the sharpness of the warning. _Someone had summoned the Kappa… no spirit could have done that… someone had painted the wiccan symbols of protection in the building… no spirit could have done that_…

_Calm down, Son,_ John lectured the Dean in his head. _Let me work_.

"Yeah," John answered Gus. "I think we can."

www

He smelled coffee.

The rich aroma was enticing enough to draw him from the dark in increments. He allowed awareness to approach. Rolling his head slightly, he felt something soft give beneath him. As he rose one further level away from the dark, he realized he could hear voices—several of them, in fact—talking over one another and creating a beehive-like hum in the background.

"Is that for me?" he asked without opening his eyes.

"Jesus, you scared me," came the reply.

_Okay, so… not Dad_.

He opened his eyes and shifted, a cold pack slipping away from the side of his face. "Marissa?"

"Hey there," she smiled, standing, a take-out cup of coffee balanced in her slim hand.

"What are you doing here?" Dean pushed himself higher in the bed, the edges of his perception muddled and cloudy with the after-effects of sleep and pain killers.

"I came when I heard about Jim," she said, prying the lid from the cup. "It's black," she handed it to him and Dean took the hot beverage gratefully. "I ran into Gus and your dad in the waiting room."

He greedily sipped the caffeinated liquid, enjoying the rush as it slid down his throat and hit his belly with enough force to clear out the fog in his system. Another sip and he found the strength to drag his legs off the side of the bed and sit up straighter.

"You saw my dad?" Another drink.

Marissa nodded. "They were talking about something. I interrupted them."

"Where is he now?" Feet planted firmly on the floor, hand gripping the edge of the bed.

She shrugged. "The waiting room was empty when I went out to get coffee."

"When was that?" Standing fully, feeling each joint, each muscle stretch and call-out protests in resistance to his movement.

"Like… maybe fifteen minutes ago… what are you doing?"

"I'm getting the hell outta here," Dean said, finishing the coffee and handing her the empty cup.

"Are you sure?" Marissa backed away, allowing him room to move from the bed to the chair that was laden with his jacket and boots. "You were unconscious like five seconds ago."

"I wasn't unconscious," Dean protested, staring at his boots as if they were the enemy. "I was asleep. He… he let me sleep." _Maybe I don't need to wear shoes_, he thought, grabbing his jacket.

Marissa saved him from finding out by folding her legs and sinking to the floor, grabbing first one boot, then the other, and helping him slide them into place.

"I suppose it doesn't do me any good to point out that if you can't even put your own boots on—"

"No," Dean shook his head as she stood up. "It doesn't." He patted his pockets, searching for his cell phone. "You sure he wasn't out there?"

"Want me to go check again?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded, remembering finally that the last time he'd seen his cell was in the alley behind the police station just before Cole decided to use him as a punching bag.

_Dammit…_

He watched Melissa jog out through the heavy doors and stepped into the organized chaos of the ER. As he did, he caught sight of his reflection in a blackened computer monitor. He could see the tight skin around his eye and mouth where the bruising had swelled; the ice pack had helped, but it hadn't worked miracles. His fingers curled into a fist at his side at the thought of payback.

"They're not there," Marissa said as she breezed back into the ER, ignoring the protests of a shift nurse. "I looked out in the lot. Gus' truck is gone."

_Dad, you stubborn bastard,_ Dean thought, his eyes finding a clock positioned above a nurse's work station. It was nearing dawn. He'd been asleep for almost eight hours. Long enough for John to decide that _we've got work to do_ meant _I'll take care of this_.

"I need a favor." Dean grabbed Marissa's arm in a gentle hold and pulled her close, his mouth inches from her ear. He glanced quickly at the nurses busying themselves with their change-of-shift routines.

"Anything," she said.

"Can you go over to the police station—to the alley between the buildings—and see if you can find a cell phone?"

She frowned in confusion, then nodded. "What are you going to do?"

He released her arm and looked directly into her eyes. "Break the law."

When Marissa left the ER, her frown still in place, Dean turned back toward the alcove where he'd been resting and swept it with his eyes, making sure there was nothing of the Winchester's left behind. Reassured that he and John were once again ghosts, he picked up the chart resting in the plastic pocket at the foot of his bed, removing the order Caroline had written there for the pain medication she'd given him.

Ten minutes later, he'd duped an orderly into helping him get a refill when he couldn't find his nurse—shift-change in a small hospital being the easiest time for him to pull off that particular grift—and was waiting next to the Impala for Marissa. He saw her crossing the nearly-empty lot in the gray light of dawn.

"Found it," she said, breathless, her hand chilled as she placed the phone in his. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not," Dean shook his head. "And thanks."

"You're going to get yourself hurt again," Marissa protested.

"Probably," Dean nodded, turning away and putting a hand on the door handle.

Marissa stepped into the small pocket of space between him and the Impala, her cold fingers curling around his, stopping him. "Dean," she said softly, her eyes on his bruised mouth. "This isn't your fight."

He let his eyes take in the whole of her face, then rest on her lips. "Yeah," he said, matching her tone. "It is."

It hadn't started out that way. It had started out as a hunt. A job. _We do what we do and we shut up about it_. But then John had started to fade out and Dean had started to lose himself and the things that used to define him, the places where he'd once found meaning, had turned inside out and the normal things—like getting paid for a job—had started to matter.

Making this fight his own—making it _matter_—was the only way Dean knew to get himself back. To get his father back. To find their balance again.

Marissa took a breath. "If you're going to do this… go deeper into all of this, well… there's something you should know. I don't know if it means anything, but… well, it's why I can't leave yet."

Dean waited, knowing that there had been something hidden behind those blue eyes since the moment he'd wrapped her up on the dance floor.

"Matt Lawson," she said, the name climbing from her gut as if it were poison, "raped my sister-in-law."

Dean blinked, surprised by the revelation. "What?"

"Jake never believed it," Marissa continued. "Matt denied it, and Jake said that she was just looking for attention. But when Annie was born… well, she didn't look anything like my brother."

"No offense, sweetheart," Dean said, his voice husky with incredulity, "but you live in one fucked-up town."

"Matt's wife can't have kids," Marissa continued. "I heard Jake on the phone one night. Talking to Matt."

Dean frowned, the cold air of the morning tightening the tender skin around his eyes. "But… what about—"

"Cody?"

Dean nodded.

"Exactly," Marissa said cryptically. "When I said before that I had a mess to clean up…" She looked away and Dean saw the infant light of early morning catch her blue eyes. "My sister-in-law is a good person. She doesn't deserve to have to handle the fall-out from Jake _and_ Annie… and whatever the Lawson's have done."

"You think it has something to do with what's happening out at the building site?" Dean asked.

Marissa lifted a shoulder in a shrug and tightened her fingers on his. "No offense, but," she looked directly at him. "I don't give a damn. I just wanted you to know. You've been so good to me, and you haven't asked for anything back. You never even…" She flicked her eyes down, then back up at him. "No matter what happens with all of that stuff at the building site, as soon as what's left of my family is okay, I'm leaving."

Dean swallowed, seeing a vaguely familiar resolve in her eyes. Seeing a peace there that came with making a choice and having a plan. A peace he had never felt. "Good."

Inching up on her toes slightly, Marissa pressed chilled lips to the unmarred corner of his mouth. "Thank you," she said, squeezing his fingers once more, then stepping away.

Dean stood for a moment, shivering in the crisp fall air, and watched her walk away. Before she was out of sight, he unlocked the Impala and slipped inside, breathing in the heady scent of motor oil, leather, gunpowder, and stale food.

_Home_…

He dialed his father's cell number, swearing when he heard the voicemail pick up.

His gut told him that Gus had taken his dad back to the site—there was something about the way Jim Sutcliff had died that hadn't sat well with Dean. Remembering from Gus' recollection that Sutcliff had kicked away the salt lines in his struggle to live, Dean paused at the motel and hurried inside.

He knew immediately that someone had been here—and that person hadn't been familiar with the Winchester's habits or patterns. His first thought was Dan Glover, but the motel owner hadn't breeched his wall of privacy once in all the time they'd been holed up in Brinnon; he wasn't sure why he'd start now. Dean crossed the room to the table of weapons, noting the way the guns were scattered, as though someone had been searching by description and not knowledge.

"Gus," he muttered.

Turning, he made his way to his father's room and found John's duffel emptied on the bed, his lighter missing. Frowning, he returned to the living room area and opened a box of rock-salt-filled shotgun shells. Pocketing several shells, he made a pit stop at the bathroom—pointedly ignoring the garish bruises feathering the left side of his face—then changed out his light canvass jacket for the heavier leather, and headed back outside.

He headed to his father's black truck—sitting alone and forgotten in the nearly-empty lot—and opened the back end, tripping the spring-like trigger that popped open a stash of weapons. Most he'd already hauled inside earlier in the week, but he knew there should be two sawed-off shotguns still in the truck.

He found one.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, grabbing the weapon, closing the truck box and hurrying to the Impala.

The sun had crested the edge of the horizon, its fingers of light turning the land to a gilded orange and causing Dean to narrow his eyes against the brightness as he headed east toward the construction site. His stomach tightened in anticipation as he drew closer to the now-familiar building. He saw Gus' truck parked just outside of the west entrance and pulled over, turning off the Chevy and grabbing the shotgun.

He loaded the weapon on the fly as he hurried toward the heavy plastic that doubled as a door to the building. The hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms stood the moment he crossed the threshold, as if something had electrified the air. Energy seemed almost to spark to life in his periphery. Dawn had reached the world, but the inside of the building—the very air that surrounded him—was dark.

_Dad, where are you?_ His mind screamed to John, but his lips wouldn't move. He pumped the shotgun once, chambering the shells, and the sound cracked through the silence like a whip.

That's when he saw her.

"Oh, God," Dean whispered involuntarily. He'd seen spirits before. He'd seen them beautiful, he'd seen them empty, he'd seen them look alarmingly alive, he'd seen them look horrifically dead.

But the tortured expression on the scarred face before him was like a punch in the gut. Her eyes beseeched him, turning from dark brown to opaque in a heartbeat; her red, blistered face seemed to fold in on itself, rippling and bubbling, then smoothing into the unmarred skin once more. Her dark hair hung down, long and lanky, to the middle of her back, strands of it covering the nightmare of her face.

Dean stood, frozen, knowing what he should do, knowing what came next, and unable to do more than pull in air.

She lifted a hand and Dean saw that her wrist bled, the liquid wrapping around her hand and dripping from her fingers. Not from a cut; not suicide. From something that had bound her. Something that had held her while she burned.

Dean lifted the shotgun, his hands shaking, the barrel pointed at her chest. Her mouth moved and Dean gasped, hearing her voice inside his head.

"_He is mine."_

And she was gone.

"Wha—" Dean breathed, looking around the room, his eyes wide, his skin alive with pinpricks of horror and fear. In the absence of Brooke's spirit, he could suddenly hear voices.

"Dad!" He rushed forward, stepping through the space she'd occupied seconds before, and moving from the shadowed building into the growing light of day.

Several feet away he saw his father standing next to a small mound of earth, leaning heavily on his crutches, his face lifted toward the building. In the hole at John's feet, Dean saw Gus' dark head and the silver glint of a shovel blade as more earth was added to the pile.

"Dean?!"

Dean took a step forward, relief and anger warring for dominance inside of him, when suddenly John was flung violently backwards, landing in a heap of escaping air. _No…_ Dean's heart beat the word as he rushed forward.

"Gus!" He yelled. "Get the hell out of there, man!"

Gus peeked up from the hole like a prairie dog. "What—" he began, but Brooke didn't let him finish. His cry of pain and surprise was aborted as an invisible force grabbed him by the neck and pulled him away from the hole. Dean raised the shotgun, struggling to figure out where to fire as Gus clawed ineffectually at his throat. Dean ducked as the spirit threw Gus aside, the contractor's body meeting the earth with a _thud_.

Gasping, Dean looked around. Brooke Marcus' tortured image stood next to the hole Gus had been digging.

"_He is MINE."_

This time the words were cacophonous in his head, causing Dean to grab his ears in defense. He didn't even realize he'd cried out until he heard his father's voice calling his name. He looked up and saw John sitting up, his face tense with pain and lined with the same incensed anger Dean had seen before: when something evil stood between him and one or both of his sons. In his hand he gripped the other shotgun.

Without having to be told, Dean hit his knees and John fired. Brooke's spirit flashed, a disorienting display of power, and she disappeared. Dean looked up and around, knowing she wasn't gone.

"She's not gone!" He yelled.

"Get the box! Dean! Get the box!" John screamed back at him, using his elbows and the heel of his good leg to propel himself back toward Dean, keeping the shotgun in his grip.

_Box…_ Dean crawled quickly to the edge of the hole and saw a box roughly the shape of a small steamer trunk half-buried in the mud. Tightening his grip on his shotgun, he dropped down into the waist-deep hole and kicked at the dirt, trying to loosen the box from its earthen prison.

"DEAN!"

He looked up at the savage cry coming from his father, expecting to see Brooke's spirit attacking his father and surprised when he found himself face-to-horrific-face with the spirit. Reacting instinctively, he pulled the trigger on his shotgun and emptied both barrels of rock salt into the spirit's chest. This time, she dissipated in a cloud-like burst of gray dust.

"Jesus H. Christ," Gus exclaimed in a strangled voice.

Dean shot him a look, his hands moving in a trained, automatic action of reloading the shotgun. "Get over here and help me," he ordered, hearing his father echo the words with his own spin, "Get in there and help him!"

Gus was hurting; Dean could see that, but he made it to the hole and used the blade of the shovel to find the other end of the box, dislodging it from the mud and helping Dean haul it up.

"Get that to the car," Dean panted, climbing from the hole. "_My_ car, not yours, you hear me?"

"But—"

"She's not gone, Gus." Dean stood, his legs shaking more than he wanted to admit. "I don't know how long it will take her, but she'll be back."

"But… you shot her," Gus protested, lifting the box in both arms, dark eyes darting between the two Winchesters.

Dean looked over at his father and grabbed the crutches. He handed one to John, then tucked his arm under John's, lifting his father to his feet, helping him balance on the crutches.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

John nodded, though Dean noted he still hadn't quite caught his breath.

"You shot her," Gus repeated.

"She's had years to gain power," Dean said. "And something else I didn't realize until now—"

"The protection symbols," John said through gritted teeth. Dean nodded. "They're to protect her… not to protect us _from_ her."

"Exactly," Dean said, picking up John's shotgun. There was still a round in the chamber. "Let's get out of here."

"What's in the box?" Gus asked, an almost child-like fear in his voice.

"That's what we're going to find out," Dean said. "_Away_ from here."

"Dean," John said. "If it had been her grave—"

"I don't care," Dean said, feeling anger work its way around his fear, weave a path through his exhaustion and barrel over his pain as if it was inconsequential. "Let's just go, okay? Let's _go_."

"It could have been done. Over. I could have ended it." John's voice was a confusing mixture of explanation and a plea for forgiveness, but it was enough to push through the filmy barrier of patience Dean had managed to construct.

"You could have gotten yourself killed, too, Dad! You ever think of that?" Dean shoved his father's shotgun at him with unnecessary force, causing John to grapple with the barrel before finding a way to hold it and his crutches. "You're willing to get killed just to prove you can still soldier, is that it?"

He was vaguely aware of Gus standing off to the side, the muddy box still gripped in his hands, watching them with a wide-eyed mixture of wonder and fear.

"NO! Dean, that's not—"

"'Cause that's what it looks like from here!" Dean stepped away, then turned back to face his father, seeing daylight hit John's face and catching on the silver and white hairs peppering his dark beard and exposing his humanity. "What the fuck happened to me being the one out in the field, huh? What happened to—"

"I didn't want you to get hurt anymore, Dean!" John bellowed, straightening as much as he could on his crutches, and leaning forward. "I had to watch that bastard lay into you and couldn't do a damn thing to stop it."

"_I _stopped it, Dad!" Dean spread his arms wide, the shotgun gripped tightly in his right hand. "I handled it."

"Barely," John shot back. "If it weren't for that Indian you might still be lying in that alley."

"I wasn't hurt that bad," Dean protested, shaking his head. "I woulda been fine."

"You take a look at yourself lately, Son? You're beat to hell."

Dean felt his chest tighten, his mind scrambling to order thousands of reasons, hundreds of words, a dozen retorts, and only needing one answer. "What do you want from me, Dad?"

It came out so quietly, the words almost lost in the war of sound still echoing off of the building, but John jerked as if Dean had struck him.

"I…"

"What do you want me to be?" Dean pressed. "'Cause I can't keep doing this all the time."

John sighed, looking down, and seemed to gather himself. "Dean, I know you've been… struggling since Sam—"

Dean felt something inside of him crack, as if John's words had breached a stronghold that had been protected until that very moment. "This has NOTHING to do with SAM!" He pushed at John, feeling heat roll inside of him. "This is about _US_, Dad."

"_There is no us_!" John yelled back, his words unexpected, sudden, and blade-sharp in their honesty. "There is a _you_ and there is a _me_, and that's where it ends!"

Dean pulled in and away, unable to mask the pain he felt as he looked back at his father.

"You are my _son_, god_dammit_. You're not my partner; you're not just another hunter!" John's eyes were both alive and devastated as stared back at Dean. "We are _never _going to be equal, _do you get that_? No matter how good you are, no matter how good you get, you will always be my son. _My _responsibility."

Dean staggered at these words, the rush of blood in his ears making him dizzy. He drew a breath, then another, feeling that no matter how many breaths that he took, he still couldn't breathe. He was never going to catch up, never going to be good enough. He was meant for only one thing, good for only one thing: following orders.

"No…" Dean shook his head. "No, you can't—"

"You are _my_ kid," John repeated, his chin trembling as his voice began to fade. "_Mine_. You don't get to make the rules in this fight, Dean."

"But you do?" Dean asked. His voice hurt as it scraped along the inside of his throat.

John pulled up straighter, shifting the shotgun into a natural firing position, the image of a wounded warrior. "Until I say otherwise."

Dean closed ranks inside. His heart pulled in close. His spine cracked as he brought it straight. Gone was the tired, easy truce from the hospital room. Gone was the soft-spoken moment of accidental memory from the motel room. Gone was any hope he'd held that John would see him as more than just a soldier, more than just a weapon to be wielded in the fight against evil.

He turned away, wanting to reach out and hold onto something, resisting the urge to fold in half at the realization that there was nothing around him. There hadn't been anything to grab onto since Sam had left. He fixed his eyes on the horizon of water that chased the shoreline just behind the building. He could let his father's need to be right, to be in charge, to be in control define and defeat him... or he could use it.

Looking over at John, he lifted his chin. "Fine," he said.

John pulled his face slightly back. "Fine?" he replied, and Dean could tell this hadn't been the answer he'd been expecting.

_You want me to be here, ground you, support you, keep you solid, Dad? You want me around when you need me, without you having to ask, like some kind of… gravity?_

"Yeah. Fine," Dean repeated.

_I can be gravity. But let's see you try to walk without me._

"Okay," John said hesitantly. "Okay, then."

A film of wary acceptance settled across John's face and Dean had two heartbeats to wonder if giving in was the same as giving up when Brooke's voice suddenly screamed in his head once more. Dean cried out in surprise and watched John mirror his body's instinctive flinch down and away.

As if on tandem strings ruled by a well-timed puppet master, the Winchesters raised their shotguns and aimed toward the image of Brooke Marcus, standing next to the wound they'd dug into the earth. With twin blasts from the weapons, Brooke's spirit once more dissipated in a cloud-like burst, leaving only the sight of a pale and shaken Gus Spencer in her wake.

"Oh, fuck me," Gus whimpered.

"Gus, take the box to my car," Dean ordered.

Gus nodded spastically, turning and running around the corner of the building. Without looking at his father, Dean reached out to take the other shotgun from John's hands.

"C'mon," he said quietly, walking next to his slowly-moving dad, feeling buffeted by a storm-like struggle that he felt certain they'd be fighting as long as they were alive.

www

John had felt this before—this state of constant exhaustion, of perpetual pain—and while his body called to him to _please, please just sit down, just stop moving, _his mind reminded him that there was a job to do and nothing stopped until the job was done.

He looked askance at Dean, at the bruises on his son's face, the determined set to his jaw. Rest would have to wait, pain could be ignored. He'd taught his kid that; he need only to look at Dean to stop feeling the ache in his leg as keenly.

_Did I do the right thing_?

He had reacted without thinking, backing himself into a corner, desperate to keep Dean in check, to keep control of the situation. But in the silence of that car—not even Dean's incessant music offering him a reprieve from his thoughts—he wondered if he could have offered Dean some kind of hope, some kind of encouragement.

If he could have at least told him that he was proud of him.

"We need to decide if Gus is in on this or not," Dean said suddenly.

"I think the whole damn town is in on this," John grumbled, wanting to rub at his tired eyes and refusing to allow himself even that luxury.

"No, I mean, if we let him help," Dean clarified.

John looked at the side mirror and Gus' truck following them back to the motel. "I don't think we have a choice, Son," John confessed. "He's seen too much to just walk away."

"Not everyone who sees a ghost wants to be a part of it, Dad," Dean pointed out.

"You know him best," John countered. "What do you think?"

"I think we could use him," Dean said. "But…" He lifted a shoulder, "I'm just your kid."

John clenched his jaw, letting that slide, knowing he deserved it. It pained him to realize that when he said _you're my kid_ he meant _I wouldn't survive the loss of you_ but that Dean heard _you're not good enough_. It had been Dean who'd reminded him of his connection, his responsibility as a parent all those days ago on that darkened shoreline, drawing out the Kappa. It had been Dean who'd made him remember that he had a son to care for and not simply another warm body taking up space near him.

He looked out through the side window, his whiskered chin covered by his roughened hands, and found himself searching for a way to help his son understand, for a way to reach him.

It hadn't been easy raising two boys without their mama. It hadn't been easy raising two boys with every member of the family against him. It hadn't been easy raising two boys like Dean and Sam. But it had been so much _easier_ when Sam was with them. There had been a system, a rhythm, a… pecking order. And Dean had never questioned it.

Sam had, sure, but it seemed to simply be his role. His personality. He always needed to know _why_. He needed a purpose, a motivation. Dean had simply needed an order. Until now. Dean had protected John from Sam's incessant thirst for information and in a way, Sam and protected John from Dean's quiet rebellions.

But now, everything that had worked before was backfiring on him and he could feel the chasm between himself and Dean that he'd detected back in Arizona beginning to widen once more. They pulled into the motel parking lot and Dean helped him out of the car—that bitch had rattled his bones but good with that toss—before grabbing the box from the trunk and hauling it inside.

Gus stood off to the side in the motel room, his hands in his pockets, his expression uncertain.

"Gimme a minute," Dean said, and John saw him reach for a soft bag. He emptied the rest of the marbles—including the red shooter—into the palm of his hand. "I'll be right back."

Before John could protest, he and Gus were left standing in the motel room alone.

"Okay, before this gets too awkward," John said, clearing his throat. "All that shit back there between him and me… it's been building up for awhile now."

Gus shrugged. "You don't owe me an explanation," he said. "I had a dad, too, once."

John frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Gus moved to the map and Dean's convoluted reasoning. "Just that… y'know… my dad was always right, even when he wasn't," he replied, his eyes scanning the notes. "Hell, I didn't even really know that he saw me as a person until he died." He glanced at John. "Too little, too late, you ask me. But… y'know, everyone's different."

John opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by Dean's return.

"'Kay," he said, shrugging out of his coat. "Got a number of a guy we can get some more rock salt from."

"What were the marbles for?" John asked.

Dean lifted a shoulder. "Needed Aaron to, uh… grease the wheels a bit. Get Dan to talk to me."

"Dan?" Gus turned, voicing the question that had hovered on the edge of John's tongue.

Dean sighed, lowering himself into one of the chairs next to the weapon-laden table. "Seems we're the talk of the town," he said, looking at John. "They're practically laying bets on if we're the good guys or the bad guys."

"This is why I hate small towns," John grumbled, making his way over to another chair and easing down, his leg beating a pulse up through his hip.

"You hate towns, period," Dean remarked mildly.

"True," John conceded.

They sighed in unison and looked over at Gus.

"What?" the contractor asked, warily.

"You wanted to know about our family business," Dean reminded him.

"I think I changed my mind," Gus remarked.

"Make your choice now," John said gruffly. "Because once you're in this, we need you to stay in until the fight's done. You get me?"

Gus' eyes flicked from John to Dean and back. "Do I really have a choice?"

"Yes," they replied together.

"You don't have to do this," Dean told him. "But… when it's over? And we leave? Don't talk about what happened. To anyone."

"This is Brinnon," Gus reminded him. "No matter what happens, or what I say about it, they'll make up a story and then no one will bring it up again."

"Good point," Dean nodded, rolling his neck.

"So?" John pressed.

Gus' lips quirked. "Do I get to carry a gun?"

"No," father and son replied, again in unison.

"You're no fun," Gus grumbled. After a moment he sighed and nodded. "Okay, I'm in. What's next?"

"Food," Dean declared, closing his eyes. "I'm starving."

"How 'bout you two run out and grab some?" John suggested.

Dean opened one eye, peering back at him. "What are you going to do?"

"Sleep," John yawned. "Hate to admit it, but this leg is killing me and I'm an old dog."

Dean dropped his chin regarding him with sharp-edged humor. "I promise not to shoot you."

"That's horses," Gus interjected.

"Oh, right," Dean pointed at Gus, then pushed himself to his feet. "Well, then, I promise not to teach you new tricks." He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of small white pills, tossing it to John.

"What'er these?"

"Contraband," Dean replied. "For the leg."

John nodded, letting Dean see the gratitude in his eyes before making his way toward his bedroom. "Don't be gone long," he ordered. "We've got some bad guys to pin down."

"Yes, Sir," Dean replied in a subdued voice.

John suppressed the urge to allow his shoulders to bow in weary defeat.

www

"I can't believe I'm not tired," Gus said as he dropped into the passenger seat of the Impala.

"It's the adrenaline," Dean explained, his breath puffing out in cloud bursts. The warmth of the previous day hadn't yet revisited. "I'm usually on a three-day rush when I'm on a hunt."

"A hunt?" Gus glanced at him askance as he turned the engine over. "You call them hunts?"

"Hunts, jobs," Dean lifted a shoulder, then reached over and turned on the radio. His lips curled up as David Lee Roth chuckled his way through _Hot For Teacher_.

"_Maybe I should go to hell, but I am doing well_," Gus sang.

"Van Halen fan?" Dean asked, pulling out onto the road.

"Hell, yeah," Gus grinned. The man was practically shimmering with energy. "Old school, though. Not much of a Hagar fan."

"Oh, come on, _Black and Blue?_ _Man on a Mission?_ You know the Red Rocker ruled that band, man," Dean protested, turning the radio up so that they were forced to yell at each other over the scream of the electric guitar.

Tugging on his bottom lip with his teeth, Gus shook his head. "Nah, I'm a _Jump_ man. 'Course, you ask me, no better band than Guns 'N Roses."

Dean rolled his eyes, turning into the grocery store parking lot. "I should make you walk back for saying that."

"Axl Rose? C'mon!" Gus lightly tapped Dean on the shoulder, laughing.

Dean shoved the gear into park, and shifted in the seat. "I'll say this once. There is no other band in the world equal to the power of the mighty Zeppelin. Here endeth the lesson."

Gus lifted his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, you got me."

"You got your phone?" Dean asked.

Gus nodded, confused. "Yeah, why?"

"You need to make a few calls while I'm in there," he informed him. "Get Sheriff Bonner to close off access to that building with his magic yellow tape. And tell the rest of the guys not to come in until you call them personally."

Gus nodded once more. "You got it."

Dean started to get out, then turned back. "Call Chester first, okay?"

It took just over an hour for Gus to make the arrangements and Dean to gather supplies—using the money Gus had paid him for working the construction site. He stopped at the motel office once more and gave what was left to Dan to appease him for a few more days. Dean figured that one way or another, October 15th was going to seal someone's fate and he may as well at least try to spread some good karma out in the universe.

"You gonna wake your Dad?" Gus asked as Dean cleared the weapons from the table and set them on the kitchen counter.

He shook his head in response. "We'll just catch him up. He's beat."

"What about the box?" Gus asked hesitantly.

"Uh… yeah, we'll wait on him for that," Dean said, not particularly excited to cross that bridge with John in the wake of their most recent duel.

"Hey, who's Sam?"

Dean nearly dropped the shotgun he was moving. "Sam?"

"Yeah," Gus nodded, having not noticed Dean's flinch. "Earlier when you two were… y'know… your Dad mentioned—"

"Sam's my brother."

Gus was quiet for a moment. "Sorry, man, I didn't mean…"

Dean just shook his head, grabbing a loaf of bread and starting to make sandwiches. "S'okay. He's at school. Left a little over a month ago."

"He used to, uh… hunt? With you?"

Dean nodded, his back to Gus. He licked some mustard from his thumb, feeling an odd sort of déjà vu as he continued to answer Gus' seemingly incessant questions. "Yeah, he did. He's… Sam is…" he sighed, then glanced over his shoulder at his former boss. "He's the best of us, y'know?"

"You miss him, huh?"

"You might say that," Dean muttered, taking a bit from the sandwich and moving over so that Gus could help himself.

"I never had a brother. Or a sister for that matter," Gus said as he built his sandwich. "Don't know which way is better. Having something like that for a little while or not having it at all."

"Having it," Dean said, moving to his wall of clues.

He began to pull down the map and notes, turning the map over on the table with the blank side up. "Okay," he sighed. "This is when I _really_ miss Sammy. He's good at this shit. I just," he glanced at Gus with a smirk, "shoot first and ask questions later. But," he continued, frowning at the paper, "this is so inside out and backwards, we need to start fresh."

"Well," Gus said around a mouthful of sandwich, "with that group you had up there, you could just as easily have thrown a dart and found a bad guy."

"You were up there," Dean pointed out.

"I was?" Gus squeaked.

Dean lifted his chin. "How you like that dart theory now?"

Gus frowned, twisting a chair around and swing his leg across to sit astride the wooden seat. "Let's see what you've got."

Dean began to draw. At the top of the now-blank canvass he wrote the names Joe Lawson, Frank Teller, and Roman Sutcliff. "The Brinnon Trinity," he muttered, then drew lines down from each name and wrote their descendants: Matt and Cole Lawson, Jake and Marissa Teller, and Jim Sutcliff. Below that row, he wrote the names of the four murdered children, Cody Lawson, Annie Teller, and James Sutcliff.

"Okay, here's something I don't get," Dean said, tilting his head at the chart. "Teresa Bowing. She was one of the kids killed by the Kappa—"

"The… what now?"

Dean pulled his face into a grimace. "It was the… thing… that killed those kids. Don't worry 'bout it," he started to wave Gus off.

"No, wait… I know that name, only, I think you're saying it wrong," Gus scratched at his chin. He repeated the word, stretching the 'a' out into a longer sound.

"Oh-kay," Dean said slowly, raising his eyebrows to his hairline. "How the hell do you know that?"

"Because his mother is Japanese," came John's voice from behind him, causing Dean to turn with a jerk. "And she knows Japanese folklore."

Gus nodded. "It's like a huge walking turtle-thing, right?"

Both Winchesters nodded.

"And… you're telling me… it's real?" Gus' voice squeaked again.

John pointed to his leg, and Dean lifted the edge of his shirt, revealing the fading hand-print.

"Ho. Lee. She. It," Gus drawled, his face paling.

"What have you got?" John said, rubbing a hand across the top of his head.

Dean pointed to the galley kitchen. "Food."

"Thanks," John hobbled over. "Those pills are magic."

"Knock you on your ass, though, don't they?" Dean commented, looking back at his chart.

"So, what's this about Teresa Bowing?" John said, regrouping the conversation.

"Well, her dad, Terry, isn't part of this whole… connection I've got here."

"That's because he just came to town like ten years ago," Gus said, finishing off his sandwich.

Dean lifted his head. "Huh, okay, so," he flipped over a couple of his notes, "he wasn't here when Brooke Marcus was killed."

Gus shook his head.

"Cross him off the list," John said.

Dean nodded and drew a line through Terry Bowing. "We thought one of the kids was an accident?" he said to his dad. "I think it was her."

"Guess we can take this guy off the list, too," John said, motioning to Gus with his sandwich.

"Yes, that'd be great, thanks," Gus nodded, then rested his chin on his forearm across the back of the chair.

"And Marissa," Dean said, recounting what she'd told him back at the hospital about Matt Lawson.

"Are you shitting me?" Gus exclaimed, his eyes wide.

Dean lifted his brows. "I shit you not," he replied. "Seems Matty got around. I'm willing to bet he did Brooke Marcus."

John and Gus shook their heads, John speaking up, "Brooke was old enough to be Matt's mother."

Dean moved over to the trunk they'd dug up from the site. "But he sure knew something," he said, pulling out his lock pick and making quick work of the lock. He heard Gus stand up and the _thump-thump_ of John's crutches as they approached. He looked up. "Any bets as to what's in here?"

"Please, _God_, don't let it be little Andrew Marcus' body," Gus whispered.

Dean opened the lid, feeling unusually tense. He could see immediately there was no body inside, but the near-empty interior had him blinking in surprise. Inside was a book, a boy's T-shirt, and three letters in faded, stained blue envelopes. When Dean reached in to pick up the book, a necklace fell out.

"It's a pentagram," John observed.

"Caroline said Brooke wore a pentagram around her neck," Dean said. "Hey, Dad, you think that even if she burned… you think there's enough of her left in here…"

"Maybe… not enough for that kind of power, though," John conceded, reaching past Dean to lift the T-shirt out. A faded _Batman_ logo crossed the front and there were faded, brown stains on the neck and belly. "Blood," John replied.

"What book is—"

"It's a library book," Dean interrupted Gus' question, turning the book over and prying the pages open. "It's from the Seattle Public Library… book on wiccan rituals."

"Oh, swell," Gus sat back on his haunches. "So Brooke _was _a witch."

"Seems possible," John conceded.

"Y'know," Gus shook his head, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I gotta say, I honestly thought she made it up."

"You thought Brooke made up being a witch?" Dean asked, frowning.

"No—Louisa Lawson. Old Joe's wife. She was the one that convinced Sheriff Sutcliff—Roman Sutcliff—that Brooke killed her own son. She started her own Salem Witch Trials here in Brinnon."

Dean narrowed his eyes, listening, gears turning, rivets falling into place.

"What are you working on, Son?" John asked, sliding a chair over, the blue envelops in his hand, his eyes on Dean.

"Just… wondering," Dean said, looking back at his dad, "if there's a like father, like son deal going on here."

John scratched at his whiskers, then opened the first of the three letters. "Hard to read—lots of the ink's been smeared. Looks like it's a woman's handwriting. Can make out… _won't tell…_ and uh… looks like _just want to start over_."

"From Brooke," Dean guessed. "But to who?"

John opened the second letter. "This one is even worse than the first. But you can read the name at the top." He looked up at Dean. "It's to Joe Lawson."

"What about the third?"

John pulled it out of the envelope and opened it carefully. "Only three lines, perfectly legible. _I want him back, Joe. He is mine. Bring him back to me or I tell everyone._ It's dated October 14, 1981."

Dean rubbed his bottom lip. "So, Joe Lawson had an affair with Brooke Marcus, and Andrew shows up. Everything is fine until for some reason Joe flips out and what? Kills Andrew?"

"No, he took him," Gus surmised. "That's why she wants him back."

"Right!" Dean pointed at Gus, getting to his feet and moving over to the chart he'd created, Brooke's pentagram in his hand. "Joe takes Andrew, but Louisa finds out and takes over. Tells her good friend Roman that Brooke killed her son and accused her of being a witch."

"How did she know Brooke was a witch, though? And why did Joe take Andrew?"

"Brooke wanted to break it off," John said, fingering the first letter. "She wanted to end it, and he didn't, so he took the only thing Brooke had that mattered to her."

Dean began to leaf through the warped pages of the sour-smelling book. "I bet you a beer that Louisa Lawson had Brooke act as her own personal Witchy Woman," he said, his eyes scanning the spells for youthful skin, rituals for potent love-making. "That's how she knew."

"So, Joe takes Andrew, Louisa gets Brooke locked up, Brooke dies in the fire…" John frowned. "What happened to Andrew?" He looked at Gus.

Gus shrugged. "Everyone assumed he was dead. No one even looked for him after the fire."

Dean rubbed his neck. "Something's… off," he said. "What was Matt Lawson doing at the building site digging up Brooke's box?"

Gus began to chew on the edge of his thumbnail. "Matt took over his construction business about two years ago," he said, his eyes darting in memory and thought. "First thing he did was work up a plan to restore that section of building. He had the first unit extended beyond the original floor plan before he hired my crew."

"The first unit is where the jail was, yeah?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Gus nodded.

"Do you have the original blue prints in your truck?" John asked.

When Gus nodded again, John jerked his finger over his shoulder. Gus practically loped from the room.

"Here's one thing I don't get," Dean said.

"One thing?" John remarked sarcastically.

Dean ignored him. "Marissa said that Matt raped her sister-in-law… basically insinuating that Annie was Matt's daughter. Matt's wife couldn't have babies, but yet… they have Cody." Dean peered at John. "How did no one notice that wifey wasn't pregnant?"

"And whose kid is he, really?"

"Because, with the exception of poor Teresa Bowing, it's starting to look like the sons are being punished for the sins of the father," Dean remarked.

"You ask me, these sons did plenty of their own sinning," John replied as Gus returned with two rolls of paper.

"Here," he said, unrolling it over top of Dean's chart. "Okay, so this is the original floor plan. This was the jail, these were all businesses." He unrolled another blueprint. "This is the extended floor plan—the one we've been working on. This is unit one, two, and three."

Dean pointed to a space on the unit one layout. "This is directly behind where the jail would have been."

John looked at Gus. "You remember anything about them finding Brooke's remains after the fire?"

Gus shook his head. "Everyone just said that she'd been killed in the fire. End of story."

"What started the fire?"

Gus lifted a shoulder. "I don't remember."

"They just left her in there?" John said in sickened wonder.

"No," Dean shook his head, remembering. "They handcuffed her."

John frowned. "How do you know?"

"Before I saw you at the hole—back at the building site—I saw her," he revealed. "Her wrist was bleeding, like she'd been tied up. She must've tried to fight her way free."

John rubbed his face. "They must've returned after the fire was out, saw that she hadn't burned entirely, and were forced to bury her."

"But… who's _they_?" Gus asked.

"Well, it's a safe bet that Roman Sutcliff was involved—it was his jail," John said, rubbing at his leg with a grimace.

"And Joe Lawson for sure, though I'm not sure if Louisa was involved beyond her whole _if it floats, then it's a witch_ routine."

Gus picked up the small T-shirt, fingering the brown spots of old blood. "Do you think they really killed a little boy?"

Dean watched Gus's thumb rub repeatedly over the stain, lost in thought. "How old was Andrew when he was taken?"

"Uh…" Gus stopped moving. "Like six? I think?"

Dean looked at John, but addressed Gus. "How about the other kids?"

"Kindergarten, first grade, 'round there," Gus replied. "What are you thinking?"

"We know we have a vengeful spirit," Dean said to his father. "One that used to be a witch. We also have a person familiar with wiccan rituals and Japanese folklore. Who do we know that could fit that?"

"Gus' mom," John supplied.

"Hey!" Gus protested.

"Louisa Lawson." Dean ticked off a second finger.

"She's full-on senile, now, guys," Gus informed them.

"And Kwaiya," John and Dean said together, their voices hushed.

"What? No way." Gus waved them off. "You're… you're not _serious_?"

Dean stayed quiet, watching John's eyes for what he needed to find: validation.

"Kwaiya wouldn't hurt a bastard like _Cole Lawson_ let alone kill some little kids!" Gus was starting to get angry. "He's protected you, Dean," he continued. "He _carried_ you to the hospital, your dad said."

Dean didn't look at Gus. "The article I read said he was found beaten and half-drowned by the Quileute's back in 1981."

"Well, yeah… I mean, I think that's around the right—"

"And no one claimed him," John put in, his eyes pinned to Dean's.

"No one wanted to mess with the Quileute's—"

"Because everyone already thought he was dead," Dean shifted his eyes to Gus. "They didn't claim him because they didn't want to know. Because this town killed his mother."

Gus's mouth opened, but no sound emerged. Dean watched the color drain slowly from the man's tanned skin, horrific realization dawning in his dark eyes. "Y-you think…" He swallowed. "You think Kwaiya is Andrew Marcus?"

Dean remained motionless, watching Gus.

"A-and you think," he pointed to John, "that he's killed _all_ these people?"

Dean looked down. "And I don't think he's done," he said softly. "Not until everyone responsible for Brooke's death is gone."

"Jesus, who's left?" Gus exclaimed.

"Joe, Roman, Matt, Cole… oh, shit," Dean looked at his father. "Marissa."

"You got her number?"

Dean lifted an eyebrow.

"Right. Stupid question," John waved at him. "Call her and get her some place safe. Then we gear up."

Dean nodded. "Right."

Gus was still shaking his head, and Dean heard him protesting to John as he moved away, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

"But if Kwaiya is Andrew… how come no one recognized him?" Gus pressed.

Dean heard John sigh. "The man I saw looked more like an extra in a horror movie than a man. The beating he sustained as a boy obviously disfigured his face quite severely."

"Plus," Dean put in, listening to Marissa's phone ring. "How much do you look like you did when you were six?" When Marissa's voicemail picked up, he tucked his chin into his shoulder and left her a message to get her sister-in-law and go someplace out of town for a few days, then to call him back.

When he returned to the table, John was up and standing next to the kitchen counter, looking over the guns Dean had lain out.

"We're gonna need a shotgun and a pistol, each," he said. "And we're going to need to blast through that floor to—"

"Dad," Dean said quietly.

"What?" John looked over at him.

"It's gotta be me."

John simply shook his head, and returned to loading the weapons.

"You know I'm right," Dean pressed softly. "You know I gotta do this."

"No, Dean," John growled. "You aren't going in there alone against a spirit strong enough to appear in daylight and the Native American version of _The Incredible Hulk_."

"Kwaiya won't hurt me," Dean asserted.

John looked at him. "Even if you're about to destroy his mother again?"

Dean was quiet.

"Think about it, Son," John continued. "That boy didn't figure out that he had to go to Mrs. Spencer about the Japanese folklore on his own. He didn't pick up on the wiccan protection symbols on his own. Someone's been _guiding_ him."

"He won't hurt me," Dean repeated. He pulled his bottom lip in quickly, rolling it out once more as he worked out what to say next. "You can't go in there on that leg, Dad. You… you're already doing too much as it is—"

"I'm fine!"

"—and I'm… I mean… what if something happens to you?"

John set the weapon in his hand down on the counter as if it were made of glass. "You don't think I'm asking myself the same question about you?"

"I can do this, Dad," Dean asserted. "I go in, replace the salt lines, use the construction equipment to blast through the floor, salt and burn, and get the hell out."

"Easy as that, huh?" John remarked.

Dean nodded.

"What about Kwaiya?"

Dean looked over at Gus. "That's where he comes in."

"Come again?" Gus spoke up, his eyebrows up. He looked like he was hoping to vanish into the wall.

Dean returned his attention to John. "We send Gus to keep an eye on Kwaiya—"

"I have no idea where he is!"

"—and when it's all done, we call Sheriff Bonner to pick him up."

"No one knows where he is," Gus asserted.

"I bet the Quileute's do," Dean guessed.

"I haven't ever been to their village! Chester's the only one who—hey!" Gus brightened.

Dean shook his head. "Leave him out of this."

"Oh, you're willing to sacrifice me, but not Chester?" Gus frowned.

"What am I supposed to be doing while you're off playing hero?" John put in.

"You get us ready to pull out," Dean said, lifting a shoulder.

"No," John shook his head. "No, Dean."

"Dad—"

"Salt lines aren't going to protect you from a spirit this powerful while you're jack-hammering your way through a floor," John returned, his voice hard, edges of words cutting through the tense air between them. "You're not going to make it to the salt and burn."

"If she comes back before I get the salt lines down," Dean said, his shoulders forward, his face close to John's, "I can't protect you and finish them at the same time."

"I can protect myself."

"You can't even stand up on your own!" Dean shouted, turning away from John. "This is just… it's _stupid_, Dad!"

The room was quiet for a moment and Dean felt his heart turning, folding in, as the pressure of being constantly at odds with his father began to take its toll.

"You can't be right all the time, Dad," he said softly. "It's not about me being your kid… or being your responsibility… You spent _my whole life_ training me for shit like this. You _made sure_ I'd know what I was doing."

"Dean…" John tried.

Aware that Gus had backed up, working once more to blend with the shadows, Dean turned to face his father, lifting heavy eyes to find John's. "I don't know what else to do, Dad."

John closed his eyes and sagged back against the counter. As Dean watched, he seemed to shrink, fading inside himself, even his shoulders curving in. The image was frightening and Dean wanted to shake his head and see his father, his hero, again but he didn't move.

"You go," John said, his voice coming from somewhere around his knees, "and lay down the salt lines. In my journal are a few protection symbols you can use to counteract the wiccan ones." John opened his eyes and Dean saw with relief that the fire he'd come to count on was still there, just burning low, like heated coals. "You set it up before dark, then get your ass back here and pick me up. We do this together."

Dean wanted to protest, his worry for his father going into battle when he was still so obviously broken frightening him more than any spirit or monster ever had. But the weight of the day wore down his resistance and logic was lost to him in the wake of John's orders.

"Okay," he said, accepting the compromise.

"Gus," John turned to the contractor, pulling him from the corner with the command in his voice. "You call this Chester person. Get him to talk to the Quileute's and find Kwaiya. And you sit on him until we tell you otherwise."

"What if I can't find him?" Gus asked, his voice hollow.

"Then you come back here," John replied.

Gus nodded.

John looked at Dean and something seemed to shift in the air around them. Dean was suddenly reminded of the moment two minutes before Sam had walked into the room and told them he wanted to leave. He'd felt the same charge then, the sensation that a balance was shifting.

"I'll be careful, Dad."

"You sure as hell better," John said, his voice tight with emotion. "Give me my journal."

www

The day had passed more quickly than any of them had realized.

When Dean drove east toward the work site, watching in the rear-view mirror as Gus' truck head west to the location he was to meet up with Chester, he was forced once more to squint against the sun, this time watching it retreat to the under-side of the earth, no longer forced to bear witness to the wickedness of this selection of humanity.

He denied the truth that his hands shook as he gripped the Impala's wheel. He ignored the fist tightening in his belly. He dismissed the throb of bruises along his face.

He had a job to do.

Parking about a block down from the construction site, Dean hoped the rock salt had been delivered as promised by Dan Glover's contact. Verbal confirmation wasn't as good as his own eyes and he didn't breathe easy until he saw the bags sitting in front of the heavy plastic of the make-shift door.

"Okay," he nodded to himself. "We're in business."

He pulled out the page from John's journal with the symbols John told him to use and the can of black spray paint Gus had handed him from the truck. He tucked his shotgun under his arm, wishing—not for the first time—for a third arm.

"This is where I could really use you at my back, Sammy," he said softly. "You don't know how much I counted on you for that."

Stepping into the west side of the building, Dean took a quick sweep of the room, the shadows playing tricks on his eyes. The smell of paint was thick in the air as was the stench of blood—from Jim Sutcliff, he assumed—and something else familiar that he couldn't quickly identify. Assured that he was alone, for the moment, he set about spraying the symbols onto of the plywood and exposed insulation. He finished unmolested and dropped the spray can, turning to drag the first of two bags of salt into the room.

"No hard feelings, Brooke," he muttered as he began to line the room. "What happened to you sucked out loud. But…" he grunted with effort as he hauled the second bag inside, "the wrong people are dying."

"You got that right."

Dean jerked upright, shocked to hear the familiar voice and cursing himself for not searching the entire building before he had begun. He lifted his shotgun, knowing it wasn't loaded to kill, but hoping to buy himself some time.

He wasn't fast enough.

www

"Where the hell is he?" John grumbled.

The pads of the crutches were rubbing raw patches under his arms as he _thunk-thunk_ed his way back and forth across the room. When night had fallen, he'd gotten angry. When Gus had called that they couldn't find Kwaiya, anger had turned to worry. When Gus pulled up in his truck, exiting with a whip-thin man at his side, worry shifted to full-on fear.

"We called Bonner," Gus said, not bothering to introduce Chester and John. "He's on the far side of town. Some domestic thing."

"He'll be here in an hour," Chester informed John.

John looked at the tattooed man, slightly disturbed by the fact that Chester looked basically in his direction, just not actually _at_ him. "This whole thing could be over in an hour. Get me out to that construction site."

"But what about—"

"Gus! You got a homicidal son of a spirit out at that construction site and my kid's there alone. Get me the _fuck _over there!"

"You got it," Gus nodded.

"I'll go get Bonner," Chester said.

"How?" Gus exclaimed, holding the door for John. "You don't have a car."

Chester lifted a shoulder and pulled out a cell phone. "I've got people," he explained.

"Grab the gun," John yelled to Gus over his shoulder. "No, the other one!"

"Right! Right, sorry," Gus grabbed the Ruger from the table and closed the motel room door behind them.

"He better have a damn good reason for this," John muttered as Gus flattened the accelerator of the truck to the floor boards.

www

Dean had found that over the years he could deal with pain by shoving it into compartments. The sharp, stabbing pain at the back of his head was buried low, it's level an attempt to dull it, if only slightly. The sting of the cut that bled down the back of his neck went one level higher. But it was the pain his shoulders and wrists that was interesting.

That he wasn't sure at what level to insert that pain because it rippled, rolling from a demanding heat to an icy jab with each sluggish shift of his tired body.

Blinking his eyes open, he saw with a certain level of confusion that he was on the upper floor of the building—the walls unfinished, the windows unframed, the floor simply plywood. His hands were cuffed and the short chain that connected the handcuffs had been nailed to a support beam above his head, the nail, it seemed, bent inward toward the wood.

He tugged at them, but stopped immediately when the icy fire licked his joints and the tender skin on the inside of his wrists began to tear.

"Couldn't've just… left, huh?"

Dean blinked his eyes into focus, peering off into the corner of the room where he knew the stairs began.

"Wasn't enough that you ruined my life… you figured you had to stick around and just dig it all up, open up that old wound, kill the town while you were at it."

"You got this all wrong, man," Dean replied, his voice slightly strained by the pressure his raised arms put on his still-healing ribs.

As he watched, the figure in the corner stepped forward, moonlight from the exposed windows streaming in and crashing across his face, showing age and lines Dean hadn't seen in his previous run-ins with Cole Lawson.

"No," Cole shook his head. Dean saw that he held a narrow lighter in his hand—the kind used to ignite gas grills or candles. "No, I don't think I do. I know you talked to Marissa."

Dean felt his stomach tighten. "What did you do to her?"

"She's fine," Cole rolled his neck, keeping his eyes on Dean. "Or she will be. Maybe I should say… she's alive."

"You sonuvabitch," Dean hissed, rocking against the beam and pulling at his handcuffs.

"Calm down," Cole ordered blandly. "That's more than I can say for the others."

"What others?" Dean asked, glaring up at the big man.

"They didn't get it, y'know? Family sticks up for each other." Cole shook his head, stroking the length of the lighter in almost a caress. "This town… this _town_ is a family. And they… they let it all fall apart."

"Did you kill those kids, Cole?" Dean asked, feeling the fist in his belly tighten once more, turning cold with the thought of it.

Cole jerked his eyes toward him and Dean saw that the pupils were nearly blown they were so wide. _Shit… what the hell is he on?_

"NO!" Cole protested. "I couldn't… I couldn't kill my own… my own son," he sobbed out the word.

"Your so—" Dean started and then stopped, the final rivet falling neatly into place as the wheels began to turn in earnest. "Cody was _yours_, wasn't he?"

Cole looked down, fat tears rolling down his ruddy cheeks. "He was such a good boy."

"Marissa heard wrong," Dean continued. "It wasn't Matt's wife that couldn't have kids… it was Matt."

"He loved soccer, y'know? And was always laughing," Cole continued, lost in memories of Cody.

"You're the one that raped Jake Teller's wife, weren't you, Cole? She said it was Matt, but it was _you_ wasn't it?"

Cole sniffed, his lip curling up in a snarl. "Bitch thought she was better than the rest of us because Jake wasn't really a part of it. Because Jake's Daddy had tried to stop it. But she learned that she weren't no better."

"Annie was yours, too?"

Cole nearly smiled. "She was a pretty thing."

"Did you kill Jake Teller, Cole?"

Cole's eyebrows went up and a bemused smile crossed his face. "It's amazing what one little pin out of place can do."

"What about Jim Sutcliff?"

Cole turned on him. "Yes, okay? Jim, Jake, Frank… they fuckin' deserved it, okay? They agreed—they _promised_ him."

"Jesus Christ, you killed Marissa's parents, too?"

Cole kicked Dean's legs apart, crouching between them. He traced Dean's jaw with the opening of the lighter. "My Daddy… he loved that girl. He would have done anything for her. But she turned him away. Told him she was going to take his kid—my brother, y'know—away. I was just in high school at the time, but I saw what it did to him. Matt and I both did. We promised him that we wouldn't let her do it."

Cole ran a tongue over his lips, his dilated eyes taking in Dean's face as if he were looking for a place to begin devouring.

"Matt grabbed the kid when he was swimming," he said, his mouth folding as if in regret. "Stupid bastard fought so hard I thought we'd done drowned him. But it took more than that to kill him."

Dean felt the icy fist climb higher until it pressed against his lungs.

"You beat him," he choked out.

"Bet your ass I did. Matt took the shirt back to show Daddy. Mom saw… found out the truth." Cole lifted a shoulder. "It was a family affair."

"Who cuffed Brooke Marcus in her cell, Cole?"

He tilted his head in thought. "Uh… that woulda been Sheriff Sutcliff."

"And the fire?"

"Oh, that was my Daddy," Cole said, somewhat proudly. "Construction is in the blood. So is," Cole grinned, "destruction. As you're about to find out."

He stood and started toward the stairs.

Dean tugged viciously against his handcuffs. "Cole! You're not going to just walk away from this one!"

Cole giggled. "Jake thought that, too. He wanted the building done so that if the truth ever came out it would be impossible to prove. But he was anxious. Minute he got that paternity test back and knew his wife wasn't lying, he went all…" Cole waved his hands in the air.

"People know what you did—more than just me! Sheriff Bonner is on his way here!"

"Sure, sure," Cole waved at Dean as he started down the stairs, his voice drifting upwards. "Jim said he was going for the sheriff when he caught Matt trying to get Daddy's secret box. Didn't get too far, though did he?"

"Cole!" Dean shouted. "Co—"

The _whoosh_ was unmistakable. And suddenly Dean knew what the smell had been before: lighter fluid.

"Oh, Dean, you _idiot_," he growled at himself, gathering his feet beneath him and working to twist around as he listened to the bite and crack of the flames as they licked the walls below him.

"'Bye now!" Cole called up to him. "You be sure to let that bitch know that you had it all figured out when you see her!"

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John saw the flames kick out through the framed windows of the construction site and his heart stopped. Mary's scream—the scream that still woke him from a dead sleep—echoed in his head and shook down his spine.

_Dean's in there_…

"Get as close as you can," John ordered as they passed the Impala. He grabbed his crutches.

"What the hell're you—" Gus reached out and grabbed John's jacket sleeve.

John pulled violently away. "Let go! Dean's in there."

"Wait for the fire department!" Gus pleaded, already dialing.

"Fuck the fire department." John dropped from the truck onto his good leg and pulled his crutches out after him. "My kid's in there."

"Son of a—" Gus slammed the gear of the truck into part, the vehicle stopped in the middle of the road, and bailed from the cab, fast on John's heels. Using John's shoulder as leverage, he pushed past him. "At least let me go in fi—"

The blast of the shotgun silenced Gus and John staggered back and away as the contractor was blown off his feet, taking the hit in the chest. A fine, white powder hung suspended in the air and John tasted salt on his lips.

_Oh, thank God_, he breathed as he looked down at Gus's unconscious form. The blast had come from a rock salt shotgun. "DEAN!" He called, not wanting his son to shoot him on accident as well.

"Sorry," replied an unfamiliar voice punctuated by the bone-chilling sound of a shotgun being cocked. "Dean's a little busy getting barbecued at the moment."

A barrel-chested man with a ruddy complexion stepped through the plastic door, flames visible behind him. It was the thug from the alley, John realized. The one that had beat Dean up. He wanted to shoot the man on principle alone.

He pointed the shotgun at John.

"You don't want to do that," John told him, snaking his hand from the crutch to his jacket pocket under the guise of gaining his balance.

"I think I do, actually." Cole grinned. "This baby's got a kick to it."

"So does this," John replied, pulling the Ruger free and firing, winging the man and sending the shotgun tumbling.

Tossing a mental apology to Gus as he lay unconscious on the sidewalk and crutching his way over Cole's dazed form, John entered the burning building, the heat from the flames sudden and intense, stealing his breath and shaking his nerve.

"DEAN!" He yelled. He couldn't hear anything over the crack and roar of the hungry heat. Off to his right he heard something pop loudly followed by a small explosion that rumbled through the whole structure. "DEAN! Answer me!"

Dimly, he heard a cry from above. He lifted burning eyes, his lungs already protesting the suffocating smoke. He could smell chemicals in the cloud that built from around his ankles and twisted up around his legs as if eating him whole. The cry was repeated and John made his way to the stairs—spared thus far from the flames.

_I'm coming… I'm coming, kiddo…_

He made it up two more stairs.

_Mary's scream… Mary is screaming… Mary's screaming…_

Three stairs.

_Take your brother outside as fast as you can… now, Dean, go!_

Another step. He was coughing so hard at this point he could barely maintain his grip on the crutches.

"De—" he fell to his knee, his left leg lost to a whirl of pain, heat licking him from the inside, from his bones, from the break left there by the creature that was the beginning of the end for Brinnon's nightmare. "DEAN!"

"_Dad!"_

He heard him then. His kid. He heard Dean's ragged, desperate voice call to him and he followed, crawling up the final two stairs. As he breeched the upper floor, he found a minute amount of relief from the smoke, but the heat—_God, the heat… we're gonna bake to death…_

"Dean?"

"Oh, God, it's good to see you," Dean panted. "I take back everything I said. You can be in charge as much as you want."

John blinked away the smoke-induced tears to see Dean standing, more or less, facing a large wooden support beam, his hands out in front of him and somewhat suspended about his head. Blood ran down the side of his neck and jaw and his face was coated with sweat.

"What the hell?"

"Cole," Dean said, sinking a bit to his knees, then wincing and pushing back up again.

Using his crutches as support, John made his way over to Dean seeing, finally, the reason for Dean's strange posture. His hands were cuffed and the cuffs were nailed—solidly—to the beam. Dean had twisted and tugged, pulling against the bindings until his wrists were raw and bleeding, blood running down his forearm and disappearing beneath his jacket sleeve.

"He killed them—all of them," Dean grimaced as John reached up to touch his son's bleeding wrists.

"The kids?"

"Not the kids," Dean amended. "But everyone else. Including Andrew Marcus. Or so he thinks."

"Damn," John pulled on the chain nailed to the beam. "This bitch is tight."

"Got a pick?"

John shook his head, patting his pockets, thinking desperately as Dean began to cough. He considered shooting the chain free, but knew he couldn't hold the gun steady enough in his condition to guarantee that he wouldn't miss.

He saw his son's legs shaking from the effort of hold himself in this position and he started to empty his pockets.

"What are you looking for?" Dean panted.

"Paper clip," John said. "Spring, wire, _anything_."

"Try your crutch," Dean said, then groaned as he wiped his sweat-covered forehead on the inside of his bicep. "Maybe there's something in the handle or something."

"Good idea," John said. He turned to brace himself against the beam, lifting one of the crutches in to his hand, when Dean suddenly cried out, "DAD!"

Instinctively, John ducked. The shotgun blast of rock salt aimed at his head peppered the beam and coated the side of Dean's face with salt. John looked up, seeing Cole Lawson standing at the top of the stairs, cocking the shotgun once more.

"You son of a _bitch_!" Dean yelled as John pushed himself up, reaching for his Ruger.

He saw Dean begin to pull with renewed effort at his bindings, a fire in his eye that he hadn't seen in some time. Cole took a few steps closer and John could see that he was having trouble gripping the gun with a right hand covered in blood.

"I'm gonna rip off your fuckin' head and shove it up your ass!" Dean was growling.

"Stop, Cole," John ordered, his finger hovering over the trigger. "I don't want to have to kill you."

"Guess… guess that's… not something we have in… in common then," Cole choked out over the heat.

John heard the flames crack as they ate more of the building.

"That gun won't kill us," John informed him. "It's filled with rock salt. For the spirit of the woman you helped kill."

"I didn't kill the woman," Cole yelled. "I killed her goddamn kid!"

"No," Dean shook his head. "You didn't." John looked over at the strange calm that had come over his son in the wake of his violent decree.

Following Dean's eye line, John looked to the unfinished upper windows, blinking in amazement at the sight of Kwaiya, hovering in the opening like Batman himself, his damaged, scarred face illuminated by the moonlight, his eyes full of sadness as he stared at the man who was his brother.

"Cole Lawson," Dean said, a tremor of pain in his voice. "Meet Andrew Marcus. I think he already knows you."

Kwaiya dropped something on the ground at John's feet, its hollow, heavy clatter revealing it to be metal, then slid from the window opening into the room.

"Wha… how… how did you get up here?" Cole stammered, staggering back, eyes wide with shock. "No one could make that climb!"

"I did," Kwaiya said simply.

John picked up the bar Kwaiya had dropped and immediately set about prying Dean loose from the beam. He could hear Dean trying unsuccessfully to suppress a groan of pain as the bar applied more pressure to his wounded wrists just before he was finally freed.

He caught Dean just as his son sagged into the void of relief, lowering him slowly to the ground to catch his breath and try to regain some feeling in his arms.

"You're not him," Cole was saying. "I killed him. I _killed you_."

"I lived," Kwaiya replied.

John leaned over and gathered Dean up against him, helping his son stand as Dean panted through the pain of lowering his arms. Cole pointed the shot gun at Kwaiya and John felt Dean shift toward him. Confused at first, he quickly realized that Dean was reaching for the Ruger. John raised it, aiming it once more at Cole.

But everyone was too close. Dean's trembling body was leaning heavily on him, Kwaiya was just to the left of Dean and Cole stood in front of Kwaiya. The heat, the smoke, the fire, the scream… that constant, horrified scream… coalesced and John's vision wavered.

His hand trembled and he lowered the gun slightly, his arm weakening. In that moment, he felt his world shift. The pop-_bang_ he'd heard before repeated its performance; only this time when the building shook, the people inside of it began to tumble. John instinctively tried to catch himself, his weakened leg giving way. He fell to his side, away from Dean, his wide eyes watching the next few seconds uncomprehendingly.

The floor beneath Kwaiya's feet gave way and as if the building had decided to swallow them, the big man, Cole, and Dean fell through to the floor below.

"DEAN!" John screamed.

He crawled across the heated plywood to the break in the floor, staring horrified at the tangle of limbs below him. All he could see of his son were Dean's still-bound hands raised slightly as they rested against Kwaiya's back, his fingers limp and curved inward as if ready to curl into a fist at a moment's notice, blood coating the silver of the handcuffs, reflecting ominously in the encroaching firelight.

* * *

**a/n**: Two chapters still to come! I would apologize for the cliffhanger, but… well, it's Christmas. And if I lie, I go on the naughty list.

All over the world, we as a human race will pause in the busy act of living to take a breath and, for just one moment, appreciate life during this holiday season. It all matters and now is when we choose to give it a nod of appreciation and concede the possibility that magic might exist among us.

In the thirty-odd years I've been alive, the holidays have predominantly meant one thing to me: a hope that things will get better and a promise that it won't stay the same.

_Nollaig shona duit._ Happy Christmas!

**Playlist**:

_Hot for Teacher_, _Man on a Mission_, _Black and Blue_, and _Jump_ by Van Halen


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer/ Spoilers**: See Chapter 1

**a/n**: Happy New Year!

Sorry for the delay; I am secretly hoping that the Holidays had you as busy as they had me and you didn't even notice the extra week… *hides behind fingers*

Several of your reviews exposed what I feared might be true as I paced out this story. I wasn't sure if the plot might be too complicated, or dependent upon too many players, to be posted in pieces as I have. It's one thing if you have the whole thing in front of you and can flip back and forth at your leisure, it's quite another when you're waiting on me…

I hope this chapter helps to clarify some of the possible confusion as to who did what to whom and why. It's a whole lot simpler to write about spirits behaving badly than it is to tangle people up in the mix. *smile*

Regardless, I hope you enjoy the story as it comes to a close in the next chapter and I thank you for the time you spend with me. Thanks for reading!

* * *

_Why should we honor those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself._

_~William Butler Yeats_

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Heat.

Licking at his skin, curling up the edges of his hair, drawing moisture from his body.

_So fucking hot…_

Pain rippled through him, pounding in a demanding cadence from his head and shaking out through his bound hands in almost visible waves.

The air itself seemed to be burning.

Dean didn't remember falling, but he knew the body he now rested against wasn't his father, and he knew he was in trouble. He tried to breathe, working to fill lungs flattened by the force of impact with the unforgiving floor. Smoke immediately made an even exchange for air and Dean began to cough, a harsh, wretched sound of desperation.

"DEAN!"

_Dad…_

The body against him rolled, tipping him and turning him to the side. He was able to pry open eyes that were swollen by tears ripped from him in retaliation from the heat and peer in front of him. Cole Lawson's blood-covered face greeted him. Instinctively, Dean tried to push back and away, but his cuffed hands made him clumsy and his wounded body refused to respond.

Cole blinked back at him, and as Dean stared, the man's lips curled up in a feral snarl. He reached for Dean's jacket and rolled him to his back, swinging astride his body, flames from the walls and support beams framing him like a specter from a horror film.

"DEAN!"

He heard his father's voice, dimly, as if sifting up from a memory. He reached up, his blood-slicked skin slipping against the sleeves of his jacket and worked to push Cole away. The man's meaty hands were at his throat, fingers clawing, grasping, closing. An inhuman sound worked its way from Cole's belly and snapped out, impossibly louder than the firestorm around them.

Dean twisted weakly, his body working to obey, the _need_ to survive beating heavy wings against his heart, but losing to the enormity of the abuse he'd heaped upon himself. The heat from the fire ate through logic, consumed reason, and he was left with nothing but the basic urge to live, to breathe, to survive one more moment.

He bucked against the weight of Cole's body, suddenly ferocious in his will to live. He heard a ragged sound and only when he felt the rawness of his own throat did he realize the cry came from him. Cole's grip loosened, and he slipped sideways just enough that Dean was able to turn and use his forearms to pull himself away.

The world was on fire.

Flames inhaled the structure, licked the underside of the upper floor, began to work its way along the floor toward him. There was no clear path, and as Dean looked wildly around for his father, he suddenly knew that this was it. He was going to die just as his mother had. In that moment of clarity, he almost laughed, thinking how foolish he'd been for fighting so hard against such an inevitable fate.

A sudden blast of cool air caught him by surprise and he turned away from the mesmerizing sight of the fire to see the figure standing in the middle of the chaos, untouched by the hurricane of hellish fire.

"_He is mine_."

"Aw, no way, man! No fucking way!" Cole exclaimed.

Dean looked over at Cole who was poised over Kwaiya's still-inert body, the bar John had used to free Dean raised as if to strike. The man stared at the spirit of Brooke Marcus with abject horror and Dean knew he was seeing her face buckle and melt just as he had when he'd first glimpsed the spirit.

"You can't be real! You aren't real!"

Dean wanted to scream out that Cole's father had made her real, but he couldn't breathe for coughing. Bowed from the effort, he simply watched through teary eyes, his body shaking, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"_He is mine."_

Brooke's dying oath seemed to lend her spirit power as she moved through the flames, closer to Cole and her son. Dean thrust out his bound hands for balance, having unconsciously retreated from the approaching spirit, and suddenly felt with the tips of his fingers the hot barrel of the sawed-off shotgun Cole had used to threaten John. The familiar imprint of the weapon grounded him, offering him purpose and he pushed away from the scene playing out before him.

With a grunt of effort, Cole swung the bar he'd been about to bring down on Kwaiya's head at the advancing spirit. It did nothing to sway the approach of Brooke Marcus. Dean tried to lift the shotgun, but the blood from his wrists now coated his fingers and the weapon slipped from his grip. Cole swung again, this time tumbling back directly into a wall of flames.

Dean flinched away as Cole cried out in terror and pain. Brooke moved forward, relentless in her quest. The flames were growing closer to Kwaiya's body and Dean tore his eyes between the two horrors. Brooke seemed to dart, her image shifting as pieces from the ceiling fell down around them.

_Dad…_

How John had gotten to him in the first place was a mystery, but Dean knew he was now trapped above with a wounded leg and Dean had no strength left to save him. He'd doomed them both…

A strangled, gurgling cry grabbed his attention and Dean saw Cole being lifted off his feet, his body seizing as the spirit thrust him backwards through the fire. With a ragged gasp, Dean looked quickly away as Brooke impaled the murderer on a building stud, a sharp-edge piece somehow still intact from the fire's destruction. In his rapidly diminishing periphery vision, Dean could see Cole's legs flinch and shake as life fled.

In moments, the horrific smell of burning flesh joined the already noxious fumes the fire emitted. Dean looked back for Kwaiya, but saw that, amazingly, the man was no longer lying there. He searched with his eyes through the smoke for any kind of escape when suddenly Brooke's face loomed before him.

"No," Dean choked out. "No, you… don't get it…"

Brooke reached out, her hand rending his layers of clothing with the burn of ice. He felt death in her touch. His head dropped back and Dean screamed, certain it would be the last sound he'd ever make.

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It had taken a supreme effort to not simply launch himself down through the hole after Dean, but John knew his leg would never handle the landing, and the fire was working its way towards his boy too fast for him to internally debate the issue. He'd pulled himself toward the now-burning stairs on his forearms, using his good leg as leverage, his mind bouncing from the horror of now to the nightmare of war with each push forward.

He kept his head low as time folded around him, feeling the imagined effects of bullets zipping over him, the certainty of death heartbeats away. As he crawled head-first down the stairs, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of a struggle over the literal roar of the fire and he fought back the pain-induced nausea with an almost physical thrust. Dean's cry of rage spurred John forward and he refused to relent, to buckle with surrender when he felt the bones in his leg slip along the pins that held them in place.

John stiffened as the fire's heat suddenly gave way to an icy cold that instantly permeated the building despite the roar of flames around him.

_Brooke had arrived._

Unaccustomed to feeling true fear in the wake of a spiritual enemy, John puffed out air between protruding lips, working his way down the stairs, feeling the wetness of tears coat his cheeks and soak into his whiskers. He couldn't be sure if they were pulled from him by the ravaging heat of the fire, in reaction to the pain that threatened to white-out his vision, or induced by the soul-crushing realization that _this_ is what she'd felt, _this_ is what she'd heard, _this_ was the last his girl knew of the world.

The bulk of his body parted a thick wall of smoke at the base of the stairs in time to see a man impaled on a broken wall stud, paint from the protective markers bubbling and melting from the heat, streaming down the walls in black tears. John's arm gave out and he fell against the bottom step.

"No…"

He heard Dean's choked voice, rough and wretched from smoke. Blinking, John lifted his eyes to see the spirit standing astride his son, her hand reaching out.

"No, you… don't get it…"

Dean's scream ripped John's heart in half. He reached for his son, tugging Dean toward him even as he pulled his own body further down the stairs. Dean sagged in his grip, limp in his arms, and John watched in wonder as Brooke stepped back, her distorted face staring at them with what appeared to be confusion. In the distance, John heard a mechanical wail and knew that if he could just hold on to Dean—just hold on a little longer—there was a chance they might survive the rapidly increasing inferno.

"_He is mine."_

Brooke's voice had become plaintive.

"Not this one," John rasped. "This one is _mine!_"

He rolled down the last step until he'd managed to wedge himself behind Dean, wrapping an arm around his boy's chest. He could feel the torn edges of Dean's shirt front and looked down, blinking away tears. A handprint was burned into Dean's flesh—just below the pentagram necklace that Brooke had worn so long ago.

"Goddamn, kid," John whispered. "Full of surprises."

He looked back up at Brooke, watching as she tilted her head, staring at her pendant. Her eyes flicked to John and he felt his lungs curl inward at the sight of her bubbling flesh. He knew what was in that look: the pentagram may have protected Dean, but it wouldn't protect them both. John shook his head, reaching around to pull Dean closer. He saw the fire before he felt it: the sleeve of his coat was burning.

With a cry of more surprise than pain, he slammed his arm on the ground, the back of his hand making contact with the heated barrel of a discarded shotgun. Without further thought, John raised the weapon, aimed it at Brooke's heart, and pulled the trigger.

As the spirit broke apart, John saw Kwaiya's large form through the dissipating paranormal threads as the man stumbled in the shadows of the burning building, his back in flames. He broke through a missing piece of wall and vanished into the night. John dropped the shotgun, turning his attention to Dean.

"Hang in there, kiddo," he whispered against his son's cheek, the endearment slipping out unguarded. "Help's on the way…"

Flames cut off their only means of escape. John's eyes tracked the path of fire around, beside, and above them. He jerked when he realized Dean's right pant leg was burning. Shrugging out of his coat as quickly as his awkward position would allow, he began to beat at the fire before it climbed higher up Dean's leg, not noticing at first when the garment collected flames as it passed through the air.

"I won't let it end this way, Dean," John growled through gritted teeth. "It's not supposed to be this way for you."

It had been roughly ten minutes since he'd first entered the building in search of his son, but it felt like he'd lived three lifetimes. And none of them had been enough. Flames singed the hairs along his arm and the back of his hand and John roared in retaliation.

All of the frustration, anger, helplessness, fear, and pain he'd worked so hard to ignore since that night in September when his youngest son had walked away rolled inside that sound. He shook with the force of it, rebelling against the inevitable loss that was his life.

"I see them! I got them! Here!"

The voice sounded tinny, far-away. John blinked, wracking coughs chasing the sound of his pain. Moving through the smoke were two men dressed in flame-retardant yellow uniforms, helmets with oxygen masks covering their faces. In moments, he and Dean were flanked by their rescuers and John felt the padded plastic of the oxygen mask held over his face as someone began to tug Dean from his arms. He tightened his grip.

"You gotta let him go, Sir," yelled a voice in his ear.

He knew the voice was right. He knew they needed to get to safety. But he couldn't seem to command his arms to relax. He couldn't give up his child. The hands shifted from Dean to John and he felt himself lifted, the oxygen dizzying in its relief. With surprising ease, John's savior slung him across his shoulders and in seconds John felt the shift from the fire's insane heat to the cool of the October night.

Coughing, John complied with instructions as he was moved from one fireman to another and carried to a waiting stretcher. The flurry of movement around him was disorienting and his vision spun in reaction.

"De—"

He couldn't speak. His lungs were too busy evacuating the noxious black smoke to comply with his need to find Dean.

"He's here," a different voice called to him. John rolled his eyes toward the voice as a new, smaller oxygen mask was placed over his nose and mouth.

In the reflecting glow from the burning building, John saw Dean on a similar stretcher several feet away. His face was black from soot, the handcuffs finally removed, his wrists and hands bloody. John could see the red, angry welts of skin through the burned-away denim of Dean's jean leg.

"Is—" John attempted, eyes darting to the unfamiliar face that had drawn his attention.

"It's not good," the man said. "Let's get you two to the hospital."

As they began to wheel him toward a waiting ambulance, John heard the cacophonous crash of the roof falling in. He looked toward the ruined building and saw Gus sitting on the bumper of another ambulance, his shirt off, and a white bandage peppered in bits of red covering his chest. John had almost completely forgotten about the contractor and his attempt to help them vanquish this spirit.

Gus was staring at the destruction with desolation, all color leeched from his face, leaving an after-image of hopelessness on the backs of John's eyes. As they lifted him into the ambulance, a slight back-spray from the fire hoses ghosting his singed skin, John gave a fleeting thought to the hunt they'd been attempting to finish. But as the doors to the ambulance closed, he reasoned that the heat of the fire and the amount of salt spread around the interior of the building would act in the same capacity as a little digging and a Zippo.

"Relax, Sir," soothed one of the paramedics. "We'll be there in about five minutes."

"My son," John croaked.

"He's in the bus behind us."

"How is he?"

"I don't know, Sir," the paramedic shook his head, fixing the bag of saline that John now realized was attached to him via an IV catheter. "I'm just worried about getting you there."

"I need to know."

"We'll find out when we get there, okay?" The paramedic looked down at him. "What the hell were you two doing inside that place anyway?"

John closed his eyes. "Long story."

"Yeah, well," the paramedic replied, his hands cool on the inside of John's wrist as he took his pulse. "You'd better be able to tell it to the sheriff 'cause he's gonna be waiting for you."

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He knew this room.

It was the room where he could never find Sam. It was the room where if he walked through the doorway on the other side he'd simply walk into the very same room. Over and over again until he could go mad from it.

He knew the small white desk with the wooden stool that pretended to be a chair and the silver-edged round mirror that hung from a twisted wire just above the desk surface. He knew the wrought-iron bed with the white comforter. He knew the faded circular rug in the center of the floor. He knew the closet with the accordion doors on the wall opposite the bed.

And he knew that if he bent down and looked under the bed, he'd see the corpse of a dead turtle.

It was the same room he'd come to every time he'd closed his eyes from the moment he'd miraculously survived the beach attack. He was always so anxious to leave this room. Because there was nothing there but the reminder of death and absence of color.

But this time, he noticed the coolness of the room. The quiet. The fact that there was no pain and no heat and nothing pulling at him or pushing him or demanding he _be, do, think, act_.

It was just a room.

Curious, Dean dropped to his hands and knees, pulling in a quick breath and closing his eyes. He turned his head toward the underside of the bed, bracing himself for the always-shocking impact of the sight of the dead turtle. He opened his eyes and nearly collapsed in surprise when he saw Sam's hazel eyes staring back at him.

"What the hell are you doing under there?" he asked, stupidly.

Sam's lips folded down in a shrug. "I don't know. It's your dream."

"Well, get out, you freak," Dean commanded, his forehead furrowed. "It's weird."

Sam scooted sideways until his upper half was visible. Dean blinked at the sight of his brother's blue T-shirt sporting an image of a green turtle on the center. He pushed himself back until he sat on his haunches and waited until Sam had extricated himself completely from the underside of the bed and sat opposite him, his back against the bed frame, his long legs pulled up so that he could loosely tripod his arms on his knees.

"Hey," he greeted Dean casually.

"Hey? That's all you got? _Hey_?"

"What do you want, a monologue?" Sam asked blandly, tossing his bangs from his eyes in a heart-achingly familiar twitch.

"I haven't seen you in like… two months, man," Dean said, his heart suddenly thundering against his ribs, beating out a three-word rhythm of joy mingled with disbelief: _Sam is here, Sam is here_.

"You're not really seeing me now," Sam pointed out. "Your dream, remember?"

Narrowing his eyes in a challenge, Dean reached out and pinched Sam's upper arm as hard as he could. His brother flinched away, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Ouch! What'd you do that for?"

"The hell I'm not seeing you," Dean retorted, lifting his eyebrow in cocky satisfaction.

"Look at your skin, jerk," Sam pouted, rubbing his arm.

"Bi—" Dean started to automatically retort as he glanced down to his own upper arm and gaped at the sight of a rising bruise. "Son of a—"

"Told you," Sam said snottily. "_Dream_."

"Okay, smartass," Dean fired back. "If it's _my_ dream, what are _you_ doing here?"

"Letting you talk to me," Sam shrugged.

"Huh?"

Sam lifted his shoulders in a long-suffering sigh. "I'm giving you someone to talk to," he said slowly, enunciating each word as if English were Dean's second language.

"You?"

Sam rotated his hands outward, lifting his palms up in a _what are you gonna do_ gesture.

"Why _you_, huh? Why not… some hot chick, or… or myself for that matter?"

Sam's lips quirked in what Dean recognized as his brother's poor attempt at suppressing a grin. His own upper lip bounced in an automatic snarl in reaction.

"Because I kinda think you dreaming about a chick would _not_ end up in a conversation, and you talking to yourself is just crazy."

Dean rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. "'Cause this has all the earmarks of sanity."

Sam stayed where he was. Dean felt his brother's eyes on him as he walked across the small room to the closet. He opened the doors and peered into the emptiness inside. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to find; in previous visits to this room, he'd always been looking for Sam. But Sam was sitting right behind him. _Sam is here, Sam is here_.

"I know what you're thinking," Sam said softly.

"Well, I'd hope so," Dean muttered, closing the closet doors and turning slowly to face his brother. "You're me, after all."

"From a certain point of view," Sam amended.

Dean arched an eyebrow. "You channeling Obi Wan Kenobi now?"

"Dude, your head is full of random pop culture." One dimple flashed as Sam's lips ticked up in a half-hearted grin.

Dean shrugged. "True."

"But everyone has parts of themselves that they don't listen to or purposely ignore," Sam continued, tapping his temple with his index finger. "And you have almost a whole 'nother person in here."

Dean dropped his chin and lifted his eyes to regard Sam. "Okay, Sigmund. What am I thinking?"

"You're wondering why you never found me when you looked for me before."

Dean dropped his eyes, staring at the tips of Sam's sneakers peeking out from beneath the cuffs of his jeans. A dull ache grew in his chest. He reached up to rub at it, the touch of his fingers somehow turning the ache into a burning, stinging sensation. Grimacing he turned away.

"So?" He retorted, at a loss for how to rebut such a blatant truth.

"Maybe you didn't want to," Sam offered.

Dean shook his head. "For being me, you're not very smart."

"Or… _am_ I?" Sam said, a cocky grin tucked into the corners of his voice.

"Why wouldn't…" Dean tightened his stomach suddenly as the burning feeling on his chest flashed, then faded once more. "Why wouldn't I want to find you?"

Sam lifted one shoulder, the image of the turtle on his T-shirt rippling disturbingly with the motion. "Maybe you didn't want to admit you were having a good time without me here."

Dean frowned at his brother. "A good time? With Sergeant Fucking Winchester and his perpetual hunts? C'mon."

"Hell, yeah," Sam nodded, seemingly warming to his theory. He stood, then leaned casually on the edge of the bed. "Dad's all you've ever wanted to be. And with me gone, hell, you had a clear shot to showing him how much of a Bad Ass Hunter you are."

Dean continued to rub at the place where he'd felt the burn, noticing how the ache had shifted and become almost a weight. As if someone were sitting on him, preventing him from taking a breath. His frown became fiercer, more from the discomfort than in reaction to Sam's completely-off-base ramblings, but Sam squared his shoulders in reaction.

"What?"

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Dean muttered, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't actually speaking with his brother. That _this_ Sam would only say what was in Dean's head. That he was, in effect, arguing with himself.

"Enlighten me then," Sam retorted, spreading his arms wide, his eyes flat with challenge.

"You've always been so wrapped up in your own world—have you ever bothered to think what things have been like for Dad?"

"For _Dad_?" Sam exclaimed. "You're kidding, right?"

Dean stepped forward until there was less than a foot between himself and his brother. "No, I'm not kidding. You think he just shrugged off you leaving? Think he was… _relieved_? He's been making himself eight kinds of crazy trying to figure out what to do next—and how to do it without—"

The weight in his chest suddenly turned sharp, stabbing unexpectedly through him and stealing his breath. He staggered slightly, reaching out. Sam's arm came up, grabbing him and balancing him in an automatic response.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was laced with youthful concern—just as he knew Sam always sounded when Dean was hurt or sick. Sam's voice, calling his name, seeking reassurance, looking for confirmation that Dean was or would be okay.

He couldn't answer. The pain stabbed again, and Dean remembered. He remembered the heat, the building, the spirit. He remembered the cuffs, the bruises, the fire.

"Dude… you're bleeding!" Sam's hand was on his arm, fingers closing tightly, but Dean was already sinking, his knees hitting the hardwood floor. "What the hell?"

"S'okay," Dean muttered, his reasoning clouded, his memory folding, overlapping, slipping around what was real and what was this world where Sam was here, Sam was next to him. "S'okay, Sammy."

"I'm gonna go get Dad," Sam said, releasing Dean's arm and starting for the door.

The door across the room. The door that led nowhere.

"Sam, wait!"

But all he saw was his brother's broad back vanishing through the doorway as the sharp pain slashed through him once more, taking him to the floor with the force of it.

www

There was enough time on the short ride to the hospital for his body to remind John what pain _truly_ was. Every bump in the road shivered up through his leg and his vision went white, a soft buzzing echoing through his ears. Somehow he missed the moment they stopped at the hospital and wheeled him through the automatic doors. The next thing he knew, the unforgiving fluorescent lights recessed into the ceiling were glaring down on him as people moved around in the unique cadence of organize chaos known only to the medical community.

_Dean…_

John struggled to sit up, ignoring the voices raised in protest as he made it to his elbows, his chest burning as he coughed into the oxygen mask. He saw Dean's gurney being wheeled in almost immediately and his stomach turned to rock at the sight. A man in a navy-blue uniform sat astride Dean's body as two others pushed the gurney rapidly down the hall.

The man was compressing Dean's chest, calling out statistics as three other people grabbed the gurney and wheeled it into the alcove next to John's. No one bothered to pull the curtain. A hand pushed against John's shoulder, an insistent voice in his ear, demanding he lie back so they could examine him. He felt someone removing the walking cast and the pain from the minor jarring of his leg was tempered only by the sight of Dean's shirt being ripped open as a female physician reached for two small paddles.

"Sir, you need to calm down," said an overly-controlled voice, drawing John's attention to the fact that he'd been shouting. He'd been trying to order someone—anyone—to tell him how Dean was even as he stared at the life-saving efforts going on around his son not five feet away.

Shaking, John lay back, staring with numb disbelief as Dean's body arched, then fell flat once, twice, three times before he heard the reassuring words: _we have sinus rhythm_. He didn't know what sinus rhythm was, except that it meant they stopped pressing those paddles against Dean's chest, stopped rending his wounded body with electrical shocks. Someone tried to turn John's face away, pulling off the blackened oxygen mask and replacing it with one that seemed to be attached to the wall.

He felt their hands on his body, felt the prick of needles going into his arm, felt his clothes being cut away and words shouted across him. He rocked with the disorienting sensation of morphine slipping its psychedelic relief through his system. He knew when someone so much as breathed near the broken bones of his leg.

But he never took his eyes from Dean's limp figure and slack features. He watched as they cut away Dean's clothes, listened to their exclamations of his wounds—third degree burns on his right leg and chest, lacerations on his wrists, abrasions on his neck, bruises on his face, broken ribs—saw needles being inserted into his skin, charts being written on, and orders being called out to take Dean away.

Take him to where John couldn't see. He began to push against the many arms, intent on following Dean's disappearing gurney.

"Sir, calm down—you need to—"

John pushed the restraining hands away, unaware that he was swearing. He felt the air escape his lungs, felt the vibrations scrape against his throat, but he couldn't care less what he said. His only concern was keeping Dean in his sights. He couldn't lose him. If he lost Dean, he'd have nothing left. If he lost Dean, he'd lose himself.

"You're not going to lose him," said a voice in his ear. A soft voice, familiar in its richness and weight. A hand cupped his cheek. Another rested lightly on his chest. "John! John, listen to me. You're not going to lose your son."

John stopped fighting and turned, his eyes meeting the calm, brown eyes of Dr. Rice.

"Hey, Doc," John rasped through the oxygen mask.

"They're taking him up to do a scan, see if he has any internal bleeding. I will let you know if he goes into surgery," Dr. Rice promised.

"Thank you," John said, confounded by the calm he felt seeping into him at the very sight of this woman.

She sighed, her eyes scraping him with shame as she looked down at his leg. "You are a mess."

John simply stared at her.

Arching an eyebrow, Dr. Rice looked back at him. "If any screws are loose…" she said with mock-sternness. Eyes softening, she asked, "How's the pain?"

"Hurts like a sonuvabitch," John confessed. "But it's… getting numb."

"I'll up the morphine dosage before we take you to X-ray," she promised. "Hate to tell you this, but you're back in here for awhile."

"With Dean," John slurred, the effects of the morphine causing his tongue to trip over the insides of his teeth. His eyes drooped and he forced them open, needing her promise.

Dr. Rice smoothed her cool hand across his forehead, drawing away soot as she pulled it back. "I promise," she said softly. "I'll make sure you're with Dean."

With that, John succumbed to mercy of medicine.

www

Sam was wearing fatigues.

Dean stood in one room, empty save the familiar white furniture, and stared through the opened doorway into another room, the twin of this one in every way except that on the floor in it sat his younger brother, dressed in fatigues, field dressing what appeared to be an M16.

He stepped through the door, feeling a strange sort of weightlessness as he did so. Confused, he looked over his shoulder at the room he just left. As he watched, a small box turtle crawled out from beneath the bed.

"What the—"

"Hey, there you are!" Sam's voice greeted him.

Dean turned back to face the room he now stood in, looking down at his brother. The M16 had become a Glock and Dean watched Sam's fingers move swift and sure, reassembling the weapon. He lifted a brow.

"What are they teaching you at that school of yours?" he asked.

"Huh?" Sam looked up at him, his brows meeting over his nose in question. His hands never stopped moving.

"I've never seen you do that so fast." Dean pointed to the pistol in Sam's lap, noticing that it was now Dean's old nickel-plated Colt .45.

Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head, looking back down at the weapon. "That's because _I'm_ not doing it," he sighed. "You are."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck and moved away from Sam—a freakin' fatigue-wearing Sam—and moved to the mirror. It hit him that the room had no windows, no lamps, no overhead light, and yet he could still see perfectly well.

"Well, since there's really nobody here but me," Dean said, staring at his reflection, "you won't mind if I say this is fucked up."

He heard the click of metal on metal and looked over his shoulder. Sam was now wiping the barrel of a shotgun with a soft white rag. The Colt—along with the rest of the weapons Dean had seen in his brother's shockingly capable hands—was nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe," his brother allowed. "I mean, you could argue that you've been running away from yourself for so long it's only when you're forced to stop that you actual face what's been tearing you down from the inside, or," Sam looked up, his years melting away from his face as he grinned, "maybe you just missed me. Either way, I'll give you that it's weird."

Shaking his head slightly with tolerant wonder, Dean turned back toward the mirror and jerked in surprise. Written in black marker, words scrunched up in the much-smaller space, was his _what if_ list. What if John never came back, what if he was truly alone…what would he do? The largest item on the list, the letters practically appearing in 3D as they reflected in the mirror, were the words _check on Sam_.

"Yeah," he conceded with a short hitch in his voice. "I do miss you, man."

"Wonder what happens with the barrels?" Sam suddenly asked.

Dean turned away from the mirror and blinked at the sight of Sam now sitting on the bed, same position, same clothes, a sawed-off shotgun broken down in front of him.

"What?"

Sam hefted the weapon as he inserted the firing pin. "The barrels. Think Dad just throws them away? Melts them down for bullets?"

"How the hell should I know?" Dean replied. "Maybe he has a secret stash somewhere. How'd you get up on the bed so fast?"

Sam lifted a brow. "What are you talking about?"

"Forget it." Dean waved at him. "What's with the getup?" He moved closer to the bed and flicked at the collar of Sam's camouflaged shirt.

Sam's hands were now taking apart a Winchester rifle, his hazel eyes flicking up to meet Dean's. "I'm a soldier, right?"

Dean instantly shook his head. "No, Sam."

Sam frowned. "Yes, I am, Dean. It's what Dad was always harping about. It's what you are—"

"Right," Dean nodded. "_Me_, not you. You were never a soldier."

The Winchester was gone. Sam swung his legs over the end of the bed causing Dean to back up a step. "Oh, because I'm not good enough?"

"No, dude," Dean shook his head. "Because you're too good."

Sam stood, planting his hands on his hips. "I don't get you. All you ever wanted to be was like Dad. Why can't you let me be the same?"

"Because you're better than that, you idiot," Dean snapped, pushing two fingers into Sam's shoulder. "You're better than Dad and me put together and you damn well know it. Don't play like you're about to deny it."

Dean felt a sigh of satisfaction in his gut as Sam closed his mouth.

"You've known it since we were kids, Sam," Dean went on, turning away, needing suddenly to see something other than the white room or his brother, finding nothing to rest his eyes on. "Your happiest moments were when you could show me up."

"Because you were always such a cocky bastard, Dean!" Sam yelled. "You were always stronger, faster, better. I couldn't keep up!"

Dean frowned at him. "What are you talking about? I would never have left you behind."

"Yeah you would've," Sam replied, eyes darting in doubt. "I know you would've."

Dean shook his head, sadness making him heavy. "I would never have left you, Sam."

It was quiet for a moment between them. The kind of quiet Dean worked so hard to avoid. The kind of quiet that screamed at him.

"Like I left you, you mean," Sam said softly.

Dean swallowed. "You did what you had to do, Sam, I know that. I _wanted_ you to go. You… you'd earned it."

"But you wouldn't have gone," Sam said, his voice sounding oddly hollow, as if it were echoing inside of him. "That's what you're saying isn't it? You wouldn't have left me."

"I…" Dean stopped, his voice strangling. His gut reaction was to tell his brother—this image of his brother standing before him dressed for war—that he'd never leave him. That it would never have crossed his mind. But something held him back.

What if Sam had never applied to Stanford? What if Sam had withered, given in to the lifestyle, become a hunter? Would Dean have continued on, fought the good fight next to his father until the world decided it was his time to die? Or would he have sought a different life?

_Was there a different life than this?_

"There has to be," Sam said softly.

"What?" Dean blinked.

"A different life than this one," Sam clarified.

"How'd you know I—"

Sam simply raised an eyebrow, his eyes bouncing a bit.

"Okay, dude, that's just wrong on so many different levels," Dean grumbled. "You really know everything I think?"

Sam's lips dipped in a suppressed grin. "Eventually."

Feeling ornery, Dean regarded his brother with hooded eyes, conjuring up a favorite image. A full-fledge grin split his face as he watched Sam's face fold in disgust at the thought of his older brother in such a situation.

"Dude! Seriously!" Sam protested, turning slightly away.

"Paybacks a bitch, Sammy," Dean chuckled.

"Just… let's keep this PG, okay? This is a family dream, man!"

Dean crossed his arms over his chest. "Fair enough. If you stay out of my head until I've actually had a chance to _say_ my thoughts."

"Dude, how many times do I have to tell you? I'm already in your head!" Sam jutted his head forward to drive his point home.

"You know what I mean!" Dean protested.

"Fine, then, answer the question!" Sam demanded.

"Fine, then I will!" Dean retorted, his voice rising.

"Fine!" Sam yelled.

"What was it?"

"Would you have left me?"

"NO!" Dean fired back his answer in a quick attempt to silence his brother, not realizing that he'd unconsciously voiced the truth. He stepped back, leaning against the accordion doors of the closet. "No," he said more softly. "I wouldn't have left you. I… I couldn't, Sammy."

"Why?" Sam's voice was soft, child-like. He seemed to be shrinking inside the fatigues as they spoke.

"'Cause this is all I have, man. This is me. My life. Watching out for you, doing the job. I… I'm not built for anything else."

"But…" Sam boosted himself up on the bed and Dean blinked at the rounded features and large eyes staring back at him. "What if you could, y'know, learn something else? Don't you want… to like, get married? Have your own kid?"

Dean shook his head. "Maybe. Someday. I don't know. But… I can barely remember a time when I wasn't supposed to take care of you. I mean, besides shooting things and fixing cars… it's the one thing I've been good at."

And suddenly Sam was twelve. And the fatigues hung from him, swallowing his hands and feet, exposing his collar bones. His brother stared up at him with liquid eyes, tears balanced on the edge of thick lashes.

"And then I left you."

Dean felt his throat constrict, his eyes burn. He wanted to reassure this kid sitting on the bed across from him. Wanted to tell him that it was okay, _he _was okay. That leaving was the best thing he could have done. He wanted to offer him hope that this choice was the catalyst to a whole new life for both of them.

But he couldn't speak. Because Sam _had_ left him and had taken with him the only sure thing Dean had in his life. He'd knocked over the fragile house of cards that was their family and Dean was ashamed to admit he wasn't strong enough to reassemble it alone. Not with the pendulum that was their father swinging over the delicate balance.

"Yeah," he choked out finally. "You did."

Sam sniffed, looking down, his bangs falling across his eyes. "Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah, kid?" Dean replied, wanting to also roll back time, wanting to be sixteen to match Sam's youth. Wanting to forget what it was like to hurt the way he had. But at twenty-two he was ancient compared to this image of his brother. He was ancient and weary and had learned that that the world had limitless ways to make him bleed.

"I'm here now," Sam said, looking up as a tear lost its war with gravity and danced down his cheek.

Dean felt his lips tug up in an automatic smile. "This is true."

His back to the closet doors, Dean slid down to the floor so that he now looked up at Sam. He glanced down, looking beneath the bed out of habit. It was no surprise when he saw the turtle.

"Dude," Dean shook his head. "What the hell is up with this freakin' turtle?"

Sam shrugged, the too-big shirt barely shifting with the motion, and wiped the back of his hand beneath his nose. "Hell if I know."

www

There was no real transition between nothing and everything. Not this time.

He simply moved from quiet darkness to demanding light.

Only one thing kept him from crying out in protest to the assault on his senses: the blessed weightlessness of his pain medication. John took a slow, hesitant breath, testing to see if his lungs would hold, or if they would burst inside of him like two balloons, bleeding out his failure in an impressive exit.

When nothing happened, he took another breath and hazarded a slow turn of his head, tracking his eyes to the steady beat of a monotone _beep_. His eyes ached. It was the only thing he could really feel. They seemed too big for his head and he wasn't convinced that moving them too quickly wouldn't result in their tumbling from their sockets and rolling across the floor.

Blinking slowly to soothe the incessant burn, John focused on the image opposite him. Dean lay quiet and still in a bed much like his own, a ventilation tube inserted between barely-parted lips, his face clean of dirt, but shadowed with bruises. John scanned his son's form, noting the bandages on Dean's wrists that gave off the impression of a suicide attempt. The lower half of Dean's body was covered with a white sheet, but he could see the thicker layer of what he assumed where bandages along his right leg.

What drew John's eyes, however, was the angry red mark on his son's bare chest—and the fact that there was nothing covering it.

The beeping came from Dean's side of the room. Looking around his own bed, John saw that he was only tethered by an IV on the back of his right hand. His left leg now sported a snowy-white cast and was propped up on a pillow, but there was no contraption suspending it from above. And best of all, no catheter.

With a clumsy hand, John reached up and pulled the oxygen cannula from his face, annoyed with the way the stream of air tickled the inside of his nose.

"Ah—wait," called a voice from the doorway of his room. John looked over, eyes meeting Dr. Rice's. "Not yet," she shook her head, reaching his bed and slipping the cannula back in place. "Not until I'm happier with your oxygen levels."

He swallowed, gratefully accepting the cup of ice water and pulling in a cooling drink through the straw she held steady for him.

"Surprised to see you," he managed.

"It's a small hospital," she allowed. "And you're a special case."

John looked over at Dean. "How is he?"

Dr. Rice sighed tiredly and moved to the foot of Dean's bed. "I'm not going to sugar-coat it, John," she said, picking up Dean's chart. "I'm concerned. There's no internal bleeding, which is fortunate, but the previously cracked ribs fractured further, which is something we need to keep close eye on." She glanced at him quickly. "I don't have to tell you of the dangers of infection from broken bones."

John shook his head once, waiting for the rest.

"The burns on his leg have been treated, and we're dosing him with a pretty hefty antibiotic. They'll heal, but he'll have some rather interesting scars when he wears shorts."

"Dean doesn't… do shorts," John rasped, suddenly transported by memory. The last time he'd seen his son in anything other than jeans or sweats he'd been a toddler and Mary had dressed him.

"The rest of the wounds are superficial and with time will heal," she said, putting the chart back down and looking at Dean. "But he's… fading. His vitals seem to be slowly diminishing and I can't…" She lifted her shoulders helplessly. "We're doing what we can. I promise you," she looked over at John, "we will do everything we can."

"Dean's a fighter," John declared.

Dr. Rice nodded. "I don't doubt it," she replied. "But when you've practiced medicine as long as I have, you learn that some battles can't be won."

John swallowed hard, looking at Dean's face. "What about his chest?"

He heard the frown in Dr. Rice's voice as she answered, "That burn worries me. It hasn't blistered, and the darkening of the skin around the edges makes it appear as though it was caused by… well, dry ice, almost. Not fire."

"Ice?" John asked, confused.

"I'm leaving it uncovered for now. A nurse will be in to clean it every hour until we see some improvement."

She turned from Dean and regarded John, her head tilted to the side a hand on her hip. "Now, you…"

John lifted an eyebrow.

"You were pretty lucky," she moved closer to his bed. "Your pins held, though the bones did shift slightly."

"No shit," John muttered.

Dr. Rice matched his raised brow. "None whatsoever. Do you have any idea how badly you could have damaged this leg? How easy would it have been to do… whatever it is you do if I'd had to amputate?"

John blinked, his mind unable to compute the possibility.

"Exactly," Dr. Rice nodded, evidently satisfied that she'd horrified in enough. "You have some second degree burns on your hand and arm, but they should heal quickly with the way your body seems to generate new cells. You're to _stay off that leg_," she poked the air just above his chest, "for the next two weeks. Then we'll talk crutches."

"Fine," John nodded.

It was Dr. Rice's turn to draw back, eyes blinking rapidly with surprise. "Fine?"

John glanced at Dean, the pounding behind his eyes reminding him to take it slow. "I'm not going anywhere 'til my boy's better."

The quiet in the room was punctuated by the slow, steady rhythm of Dean's beating heart. He heard words bouncing around inside of Dr. Rice's head, felt her working through the tension of figuring out what to say next. He shifted his eyes to her, catching her gaze with his unrelenting one.

"I'm not leaving here without Dean," he said, each word clipped at the edge, an order implied.

"Okay, John," she said quietly, crossing her arms over herself as if holding back reality. "You hungry?"

John shook his head.

"You need to eat."

"Later, maybe," John said, watching Dean breathe. It was calming, reassuring to see the motion.

"Get some rest," Dr. Rice said. "Sherriff Bonner has already been asking for a piece of you."

"He can get in line," John replied.

Dr. Rice chuckled softly and he heard her move toward the door.

"Hey, Doc?" he called. He heard her pause and turned his head to look at her. "What's your first name?"

She hesitated and he watched as she set her mouth in a careful line. "It's Anne."

John's lips quirked. "Your name is Anne Rice?"

She lifted an eyebrow. "You giving me lip, MacGillicuddy?"

"Touché, Doc," John smiled. He looked down, pulling strength from his gut, then glanced up at her through his lashes. "Thank you."

"Just heal up, John," she replied, her hand on the door. "Maybe one of these days you can tell me what all of this… pain… was for."

"Maybe," John whispered as she closed the door. He looked back at Dean. "If I can figure it out myself."

www

At some point he'd shucked his jacket. He didn't remember taking it off, but he no longer had it on as he sat on the floor opposite Sam, a jumble of blue and red marbles between them. Sam—the twelve-year-old version of Sam—was wearing a Metallica _Black_ album T-shirt and jeans with ripped knees. His bare feet were tucked up under his legs.

"How come you never gave these to me?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. "You kinda grew up too fast, man."

"I woulda liked them," Sam protested.

Dean lifted a shoulder. "Maybe."

Sam flicked his thumb against the large red shooter and knocked one of Dean's blue marbles out of the circle. He leaned over with a grin to gather his winnings and Dean saw something dangling from his brother's neck.

"Dude."

Sam straightened up. "What?"

"Why are you wearing my pendant?"

"Your what?" Sam's face twisted into a question mark.

Dean reached over and _thunked_ his brother on the chest with two fingers. "That, man. You gave it to me."

Sam looked down and fingered the leather strap holding the pendant in place. "I did?"

Dean started to reply, then looked again. It wasn't his pendant he now saw, it was a pentagram. He reached up to his neck and felt the familiar, reassuring presence of his own pendant right where it should be. Looking back at his brother, he saw that Sam was staring at him with worried eyes.

"Forget it," Dean shook his head. "Let's do something else."

"What is this thing, Dean?" Sam asked, bouncing the pentagram between his fingers.

"A pentagram," Dean replied, drawing out the word.

Sam rolled his eyes. "I _know_ that," he replied snottily. "I mean, why the hell am I wearing it?"

"You think I know?"

"This is your dream," Sam pointed out for the fiftieth time.

Dean stood, impatiently kicking the marbles aside and watching them scatter, some rolling beneath the bed, some under the crack in the closet door. "Like hell," he grumbled. "If it were then I'd get out of this damn room."

"Why?" Sam asked, his voice cracking slightly. "I like this room."

Dean turned away, his arms spread out to the side. "_Why_? It's… tiny and white and… _tiny_."

"Don't you remember this room, Dean?" Sam's voice was deepening, the edges of his words rumbling slightly so the Dean was suddenly reminded of their father. He turned around and saw with a slight bit of horror that Sam was aging. He was caught somewhere between twelve and eighteen.

"Why would I remember this room?" Dean replied, trying not to visibly freak out in front of his brother.

Sam started to push himself to his feet. Dean half-expected his jeans and shirt to tear ala The Incredible Hulk as he stood to his full, eighteen-year-old height, his shoulders broadening, his muscles growing. But as things can do only in dreams, his clothes grew with him and Dean found himself having to look up to his meet his little brother's eyes.

"This was our room, man," Sam said. "In Uncle Mike's house—after the fire."

Dean looked around him once more. He'd first dreamed about this room the night after they'd fought the Kappa. He'd dreamed about it nearly every night since, always searching for Sam, never finding him. He tried to go back, to recall that time, but it was so far away, and so much had happened.

"How do _you_ remember this room?" Dean challenged. "You weren't even one."

"Well, _I_ don't," Sam said, shifting his weight to one leg and resting his hand on his hip. "But this is—"

"Yeah, yeah." Dean waved an impatient hand at him. "Spare me more of your dream weaver crap, okay?"

Sam lifted his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm just saying—"

"Well, _don't_ say," Dean snapped, walking around Sam to stand in one of the two doorways. "If this is a dream, then why can't I leave, huh?"

Sam was quiet behind him.

"And why do the doorways just lead me in circles?"

Sam said nothing.

Dean rested a hand on the doorjamb, dropping his hands with a tired sigh. "Why are you here, Sam?"

When Sam still didn't answer him, Dean turned around. The room was empty.

"Sam?" He called, a slight panic whispering through his heart. "Sam! Where are you?"

He moved to the closet and practically ripped the accordion doors from the hinges as he tore them open. It was empty save for a few marbles. He turned to face the bed, knowing the only other place he could look. Fear gripped him. He was terrified to look under that bed. He was terrified to find Sam, and terrified _not_ to find him.

Panic rose, curling gnarled fingers inside of him and clenching a tight fist.

_Sam…_

www

Dean's body shook, his hands twitching as if his muscles remembered how to protest even if he weren't fully aware of the action. John winced as the ventilator was removed and Dean coughed, seeming to come around for a moment before sagging back, eyes closed.

"His oxygen levels have improved," Dr. Rice informed him, "so that's a good sign."

"Why isn't he waking up?" John asked, sitting in his wheelchair next to Dean's bed, his leg propped up on an extender, his IV pole behind him.

"His body is desperate for rest, John," Dr. Rice said. "I'm reassured that his vitals haven't dipped further, and having the tube out will make him more comfortable."

John nodded.

"John?" Dr. Rice said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He wasn't sure when it had happened, but this woman had slipped in behind his walls, and her touch no longer tightened him or repulsed him. He even allowed it to comfort him in a way he hadn't in a very long time. It struck him then that since the firefighters had pulled Dean from his arms, he had yet to touch his son.

He looked up at her. "Sherriff Bonner is here. Needs to ask you some questions," she said.

It had been almost twenty-four hours since he'd forced Gus to take him to the building site in search of Dean. He knew he wouldn't be able to avoid the inquisition much longer.

"Okay," he nodded. "Send him in."

Dr. Rice patted his shoulder and left the room. In moments, John heard the room door open once more and heard the nervous sound of someone clearing their throat.

"Hello, Sherriff," John greeted, not looking away from Dean.

"Mr., uh…"

"Just call me John." He looked over his shoulder at the other man. "Have a seat." He nodded to the hard plastic chair positioned between the two beds.

Sherriff Bonner sat down, his hat in his hands. His careworn face was sympathetic, his eyes running down Dean's still body.

"How is he?"

John looked back at his son. "He's a fighter," he replied. Though, admittedly, there didn't seem to be much fight in Dean at the moment. His normally tense posture was relaxed. His hands were limp, not positioned to fist up at a moment's notice. "What can I do for you?"

Sherriff Bonner cleared his throat once more. "Cole Lawson's body was found burned and hanging from a metal spike inside the downtown construction site," he began.

John sat quietly, waiting for a question.

"The site was completely destroyed," Bonner continued. "The town's finances apparently with it."

"Sorry to hear that," John replied, finding the words to be surprisingly true.

"I need to know why."

John glanced at the other man. "Why what?"

"Why I have another dead body in my morgue," Bonner snapped, the tension he was obviously feeling from the past several weeks seeping out with helpless frustration. "Why my town is dying."

John licked his lips, shifting in his chair. The ache in his leg had become so familiar he almost didn't notice it. But the itch was new. "Hand me that chopstick looking thing, there," he requested. Bonner handed it over and John jabbed it carefully down inside the cast. "Son. Of. A. Bitch," he muttered to himself. "This is gonna get real old real quick."

"I can wait as long as it takes," Bonner said, stubbornly.

John was reminded of Sam in that tone. He glanced over, half expecting Bonner's arms to be crossed over his chest. "I can tell you what I know, but the rest," he glanced at Dean, "is gonna have to wait on him."

"Why's that?"

"'Cause I wasn't there for the final act," John sighed. "Dean faced that one on his own." He sat back and rested his eyes on the reassuring motion of his son's chest as he breathed.

"Tell me what you know."

"You're not gonna like it," John predicted. "But I promise you every word is true."

"And you can back this up?"

John nodded. "I can."

Bonner pulled out a small notebook. "Hit me."

"It started with your predecessor," John began.

"Roman?"

John nodded. "Roman Sutcliff. He and two of his pals, Frank Teller and Joe Lawson, basically made a deal with the devil."

"I hope you're joking," Bonner inserted.

_If only…_

"You want to hear this or not?"

Bonner waved at John. "Go on."

"Joe Lawson was having an affair with a girl named Brooke Marcus," John continued. "She had a son as a result of the affair."

"You're telling me… you're saying little Andrew Marcus… that he was Joe Lawson's kid?"

John nodded. "For reasons we'll probably never know, Brooke decided she wanted to end the affair. Probably because Joe was a grade-A asshat, but that's just my two cents. Anyway," John glanced once at Bonner. "Lawson wasn't ready to let her go, and Andrew was kidnapped."

Bonner shook his head. "No, no. Brooke Marcus killed her son," he replied. "I've reviewed that file myself."

"What you saw in the file was the story Teller, Lawson, and Sutcliff made up to cover their tracks," John proclaimed. "Brooke Marcus didn't kill anyone."

"It's a pretty big claim to say that Joe killed the boy."

John shook his head. "He didn't."

"Well, who are you saying killed Andrew, then?" Bonner asked, clearly frustrated.

John looked at him. "No one killed him," he said. "Andrew Marcus is alive."

"The hell you say," Bonner exclaimed.

Dean flinched and both men turned their attention to him. The machine's steady beep didn't alter and after a few moments with no further movement from Dean, John relaxed and looked back at Bonner.

"I told you," he said, "you weren't going to like this. You ready to hear the rest, or do you want to go now and make up your own story to explain what's happened to your town just like the others did?"

Bonner seemed to sink into his chair, his mouth drooping into a bow of shattered illusions. "You have to understand," he said. "I've lived here all my life. This town… this town is my _family_. You have any idea what it's like… finding out a truth like this about your family?"

John looked away, not answering.

"Give me the rest."

"You sure?" John pressed, still not looking at the other man.

"I'm sure."

John took a breath. "Around the same time Brooke Marcus died, a Quileute man found a boy—beaten and nearly-drowned—and took him into the tribe to raise as one of their own when no one in the town claimed him. That boy—Kwaiya—is Andrew Marcus."

"Son of a bitch," Bonner breathed.

"Joe Lawson had two other sons during the time he had the affair with Brooke Marcus."

"Matt and Cole," Bonner nodded.

"Right. Apparently—and the details on this you'll have to get from Dean—Cole tried to kill their bastard brother." John looked at Dean, wishing with everything inside of him that his boy would open his eyes and fill in the gaping holes, help him justify or at least explain the purpose for all this pain. "Only, Andrew didn't die."

Bonner pinched the bridge of his nose. "Louisa Lawson—Joe's wife—was the one to claim that Brooke killed Andrew."

John nodded. "Somehow she found out about the affair and what her son had done. She managed to convince enough people and Brooke was arrested."

Bonner was shaking his head. "But the files… the case files were so thorough. Blood evidence, photographs of her house. I'm telling you, the woman looked like a… a witch."

"She _was_ a witch," John replied. "But she didn't kill her son."

Bonner gaped at John. Before the sheriff had time to assimilate the _witch_ part, John rolled on.

"Brooke was arrested and cuffed inside the jail. They trapped her in there and lit a fire."

"They?"

"Lawson, Teller, and Sutcliff."

Bonner's mouth opened and closed, as if swallowing air rather than breathing it.

"Lawson had the affair, and Sutcliff was sheriff… but… why Frank Teller? I mean, I know he was a friend of Lawson's, but… _murder_?" Bonner said.

John lifted a shoulder. "Like I said, some of the details we can get from Dean… others… you might never know. Brooke died and they buried her beneath the ruined building. They fabricated a case file and the town was happy to let the dead bury the dead."

Bonner rubbed his face, saying nothing. John took a breath.

"This next part… you're gonna have to trust me on."

"Why's that?"

"Because," John began to twist his wedding ring. "It's a little… supernatural."

Bonner's eyebrows rose to his hairline. "If you're about to tell me that the ghost of Brooke Marcus killed all these people…"

John simply looked back at the sheriff, eyes serious, face impassive.

"Jesus Christ, man." Bonner regarded him imploringly. "You expect me to believe that shit?"

John looked away, watching as Dean's hands twitched, his fingers moving as if he were drumming a rhythm. "Some things are true whether you believe them or not," John replied.

"I knew I should have retired last year," Bonner almost moaned.

"Gus Spencer told us that the building site and the surrounding area was unable to sustain a successful business for years, but that nothing much really happened aside from that around here until a team of investors decided to restore the site."

Bonner nodded. "That sounds about right."

"This team just happened to be comprised of the sons of the men who killed Brooke Marcus and allowed her son to be beaten beyond recognition."

John watched the pieces fall into place on Sheriff Bonner's face. "Matt Lawson, Jake Teller, and Jim Sutcliff. All the second generation… well, except Terry Bowing."

"Right," John nodded. "First thing this team of investors does is desecrate Brooke's grave by covering it up with more building."

"I'm guessing you're going to tell me that's a bad thing."

"How long after that part of the remodel was finished did the first kid die?" John asked him.

Bonner sagged, dropping his face into his hands. "Oh, God, those kids. Those poor little kids."

"Cody Lawson, Annie Teller, James Sutcliff, and the real casualty of this war, Teresa Bowing," John ticked off his fingers as he named them. "She took their children just as their father's had taken hers."

Bonner lifted his face. "But… how?"

John looked at Dean. "Still working that part out."

"And Jake Teller? Jim Sutcliff?"

John shook his head. "That was Cole."

"Wait, what? Cole? _Cole Lawson_ killed those men?" Bonner exclaimed. "You'd better have something to back this up."

John looked down, the white bandages that covered his burns glaring at him with accusations of inadequacy.

"_Cole Lawson is a total douche bag... Only reason Gus hasn't fired his ass is that he needs help. And Lawson's brother is one of the partners."_

"Dean knew it," he said softly, his mind retracing steps, finding holes in logic. "He knew the guy was bad news. Lawson tried to beat my kid to death right behind your station just a couple of nights ago."

"What?"

"His father watched the whole thing," John said.

"That's… _that's_ what Joe was doing? Watching a fight? They told me he was simply worried about the building project after Teller died…"

"I couldn't help him," John said softly. "I tried, but…" John shook his head. "Kwaiya was there. Ended up carrying Dean over here."

"How does this mean Cole killed those men?"

"When I got to the building," John said, having almost forgotten Bonner was in the room, "it was already burning." He looked at Dean.

"_Oh, God, it's good to see you... I take back everything I said. You can be in charge as much as you want."_

"Cole shot Gus in the chest with rock salt."

"So that's why he's still alive," Bonner intoned.

"He'd handcuffed Dean on the second floor and was going to let him burn alive. I shot him—winged him, really—and went up after Dean." John rubbed his face, remembering the heat, the blood on Dean's wrists, the fear that took him by the throat at the sight of his child in such peril.

"_He killed them—all of them… Not the kids… But everyone else. Including Andrew Marcus. Or so he thinks."_

"He told me Cole had killed them all, except the kids," John sighed. "There wasn't time for him to say anything else."

"How did Cole Lawson die?" Bonner questioned, his voice all-business.

"The floor collapsed," John said. "Kwaiya, Lawson, and Dean fell through. By the time I got down there, Kwaiya was gone and Lawson was impaled on the spike."

"So Kwaiya could have killed him," Bonner said, eager to have a tangible perpetrator, regardless of justification.

"Brooke killed him," John replied with conviction.

"But you didn't actually _see_ him get killed," Bonner pressed.

John sighed. "No. I didn't see it."

"That's all I need," Bonner stood up.

"No it isn't," said a fragile female voice from the doorway.

John and Bonner both turned to see Marissa Teller leaning against the doorway to the room. Her right arm was in a sling, the left side of her face an ugly mess of bruises, and a long, angry line of stitches ran from her eyebrow and disappeared into her hairline.

"Oh, my God," Bonner breathed, hurrying over to her. He gently cupped her elbow and led her to the chair he had been sitting in, facing Dean's bed. "Who did this to you, girl?"

Marissa swallowed, her eyes pinned to Dean's face. "Cole Lawson," she replied.

John gaped at her, his gut twisting sickeningly as he thought about having suspected her of being the cause of this madness.

"…_your little girlfriend has a pretty hefty motive—losing her boyfriend like that. And witches are more commonly female; the Kappa was summoned by someone familiar with Wiccan rituals."_

"When?" John demanded.

"Last night," Marissa replied. "I was at Jake's house, helping his wife pack. Cole came over, and he was… I don't know. Not drunk, but… he was definitely on something. I made him go for a drive because I didn't want him around her. His family had done enough to destroy mine."

The venom in her voice chilled the room. John could see Bonner standing to the side of Marissa's chair, but he kept his focus on her battered face.

"We didn't go far," she said, her voice hitching. "The first time he hit me… I didn't see it coming. My face hit the window. He was demanding to know what I'd told Dean. Cole had it in his head that he and I were… a couple," she seemed to gag slightly when she said the word, "and he wanted to know why I'd betrayed him."

"What did you tell him?" John asked.

Marissa lifted her wolf-blue eyes to his, the tears shining there those of anger. "That I hated him. That I'd told Dean everything—I'd told him how Matt had raped Jake's wife, how I knew Annie was Matt's daughter…"

"I gotta sit down," Bonner whispered, resting a hip on the edge of John's empty bed.

"But," Marissa continued, her split lip quivering with the force of her emotions. "He told me I was wrong. It hadn't been Matt… he'd been the one to rape her. Annie was his daughter. And," she sniffed, a tear gliding across her swollen cheekbone. "Cody was his. And…" she reached out a shaking hand and rested the tips of her fingers on Dean's bandaged wrists. John's eyes flicked quickly to Dean's face, searching for some sign that he'd felt Marissa's touch. "He told me he'd… he'd killed my… my father."

The tears ran freely now. Bonner set a box of tissues in her lap.

"He wasn't making sense," she said, awkwardly blowing her nose. "But he said that Dad knew something and was going to tell something and…"

"Cole killed Frank Teller?" Bonner repeated slowly.

Marissa nodded. "He was hitting me… so hard. I kicked at him and opened my door and rolled out."

"You're willing to swear to this?" Bonner asked.

Marissa looked at him. "I'll do whatever you need me to, Sheriff," she said. "I want Cole Lawson to burn."

"He already has," John said softly.

After a moment of shocked silence, Marissa spoke again. "Is he going to be okay?"

John knew this time she was talking about Dean. "He's a fighter," he replied.

"He's been good to me," she said. "You don't find guys like him a lot these days."

"No, you don't," John agreed, thinking about his son's drive, his instinct to protect, his code of honor cleverly disguised by a devil-may-care grin.

Dean was common sense wrapped in reckless abandon and John had never truly appreciated the gift that was such a combination.

"You got someone to take you home?" Bonner asked Marissa.

"No," she said softly. "I'd appreciate the ride."

"You got it," Bonner said. He looked over at John. "We're done, for now. Until your son…"

"I'll let you know when he wakes up," John replied.

Marissa stood to leave, then paused. As John watched, she bent low and brushed her lips across Dean's forehead. "Thank you," she whispered. "You saved my life."

They left him alone with his son, and John leaned forward, slowly reaching out and resting his fingers on Dean's warm skin.

"C'mon back to me, kid," he whispered.

www

"Sam, I'm not playin'!" Dean shouted, glancing first through one door way and then into another. "You come back right the hell now!"

The silence that greeted him terrified him more than the prospect of looking under the bed.

"It's just a dream, Dean," he told himself, his fingers twitching, curling and uncurling against his palms. "If it's just a dream, you can wake up, right. So wake up? C'mon, man, wake up! WAKE UP! WAKE UP, DEAN!"

His throat felt raw from yelling and his voice echoed back to him from the empty walls. He moved across the room to the bed.

"Son of a bitch," he growled.

Grabbing the bed frame, he yanked, hard, pulling the bed away from the wall. The physical action felt good and he pulled again, tugging and shoving until he'd pushed the bed to a lopsided angle in front of the closet doors. The floor beneath where the bed had been was bare. Not even a dust bunny to speak of.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" Dean bellowed. "You just leave? Again?"

He kicked at the wall, denting the plaster. It hurt, but it also felt good. Turning, he grabbed the stool and threw it with all his might toward the closet door, shattering the wood.

"You're a selfish bastard, Sam!" He screamed it, feeling pieces of him break inside as the words finally tore free. "All you thought about was getting out, going to school. You wanted a _normal_ life, huh? What about me?"

He whirled and punched at the wall, feeling the vibration shimmy back through his knuckles and up through his shoulder.

"You think I wanted to watch over you every fucking day?" His face was burning from the effort of his screams. "You think I wanted to be scared all the time that something bad was going to happen to you? _Huh?" _His hands shook at his sides. "You think I wanted to give up everything? _Everything_? Just to watch you walk away? Leave me here?"

He pounded his other fist into the wall, wanting to bleed, feeling as though that might be the only way to find release.

"He didn't know what to do… _I _didn't know what to do. We've always had you. You always balanced us." Dean felt the pressure of tears squeeze his chest and he rebelled, refusing to give in. "We've never had a home, Sammy. We've never been… been safe. But, dammit, at least we were together!"

He turned to the desk and reached for the small silver mirror. Just as he grasped the frame, however, he saw his list. His _what if_ list. And the last line was blurred, smeared out as if a hand had erased it in haste. Instead, below it was written: _Forget about Sam._

Dean pulled the mirror from the wall and started to throw it, wanting to shatter the glass and eliminate those words. But he caught the reflection captured inside and realized it was not his own. It was his father's.

He slumped against the wall, the mirror gripped in his hands. John's eyes stared out at him, his voice filling the room around him.

"_He left us, Dean. He made that choice. I gave him a choice. And he left…"_

Dean slid to the floor, the mirror like a life-line to a forgotten world. A world he didn't know how to get back to. John's eyes seem to bleed pain through the glass.

"_Goddammit, Dean, I did the best I could. I tried to protect him from this as long as possible. But you know why he had to be a part of it. He knows. And he turned his back on us. I told him to choose, and he chose to leave!"_

Emotion choked him, burned the backs of his eyes, fisted its way through his heart until he felt the sob shake through him. Pressing the mirror to his forehead, Dean bowed his head, letting the tears come as John whispered.

"_I miss it… The way we used to be. I miss Sam, too."_

www

The only thing that had kept Dean off ventilator as the night hours stretched out was the fact that Dr. Rice seemed unconvinced it would do any good. As John watching, his son seemed to grow fainter before his eyes. The slight flinches and twitches he'd witnessed when Bonner had been there didn't return. Instead, an almost corpse-like stillness seemed to overtake his son and John found himself unable to willingly release his hold on Dean's arm, the feel of his warm skin a reminder that life still beat within.

_Buck up, Winchester!_

The voice had been so quiet for so many days John had all-but forgotten it.

_You didn't raise a quitter. Dean will dig himself out of this._

"He shouldn't have to," John argued softly.

The burn on Dean's chest continued to seep and the blackened skin around the edges turned John's stomach if he looked too long. They'd cut off the pentagram and the pendant Dean always wore and put both in the bag of his personal items beneath the bed. The silver ring that his son was never without was also missing, and the braided charms he'd so often seen on Dean's wrists had been replaced by the bandages.

It was almost like looking at a shell, a clone. Not his boy. Not his son.

_You gonna just sit there? Just sit there and watch him die?_

"Shut the hell up," John growled aloud to the voice in his head. "What do you know? You beat on us until we obeyed. You never inspired respect, you demanded it!"

_And are you any different?_

The voice was right. He wasn't any different. He looked at his boy and his heart ached as fiercely as it did when he thought of Mary, when he spoke to her.

"Goddamn, kid," John whispered. "You knew, didn't you? You knew it was Lawson, and I didn't listen. I'd give anything," he swore, his voice choked. "I'd give anything to switch places with you. If I could… make a deal. If such things were possible… I'd take your place. You gotta know that."

"_You are __my__ kid. _Mine_. You don't get to make the rules in this fight, Dean."_

He'd been so arrogant. So sure that he was the one that had to be in control. But Dean hadn't needed to be reminded of his place. He'd been the one to remind John who he was.

"_I am. I'm _your_ child."_

It had been Dean who'd taken John back to ground and reminded him that he had a place and a purpose. He was more than a soldier, a hunter. He was a father. And he'd let his son down. He'd let them both down.

Suddenly unable to breathe, John pushed away from the bed. With difficulty, he moved out of the room and into the quiet hallway. A quick glance at the clock on the wall told him that it was nearing five in the morning.

"Can I help you?" Asked a familiar-looking nurse.

"I need… I just need to… think somewhere," John managed, his voice a choked imitation of his normal tone.

"Is Dean okay?" The woman stood, preparing to move around the desk, concern drawing lines around her eyes. John placed her now. Caroline. The nurse who'd been with them in the ER just days ago.

"No change, I just—" John couldn't continue.

Caroline's face smoothed as if she understood. "The whole hospital is pretty quiet right now," she said. "But… I always find the chapel on the fifth floor a good place to think."

"Chapel?" He didn't need God; he needed to focus.

"It's peaceful," Caroline shrugged. "And people rarely go there."

"Fifth floor," John nodded. "Thanks."

"Need some help?"

John shook his head, maneuvering the wheelchair toward the elevator, and wheeling inside. Once on the fifth floor, he saw the sign indicating the direction for the chapel and made his way toward the small room. It was on the outer edge of the small hospital, the omnipresent stained-glass windows dark as night still clung to the outside world.

It was quiet inside, light provided by a series of small votive candles at the front of the room, and a small bulb hanging above the altar. John wheeled to the front, staring at the collection of religious markings with empty eyes. They meant nothing to him beyond their history and the power they contained in his battle against evil. They offered no comfort, no assurance that he wasn't in this alone.

He wanted to pace, having so often found comfort in the repetitive motion. But his body denied him that comfort. He found himself working to steady his breathing, and gripped the edges of his wheels tighter.

"I wanna know why," he suddenly blurted, jaw clenched, eyes up. "Why Mary? Why my boys?"

Silence was his only answer.

"If it's me, then just take me. Let Dean go."

Someone cleared their throat behind him. He turned to see an older man with the collar of a pastor easing himself into one of the six pews in the room.

"I'm sorry," the man said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

He reminded John of Jim Murphy. But then every pastor reminded John of Jim. They all seemed to have the same air of calm and assurance of having some kind of answer that no one else seemed to possess. It pissed him off.

"I didn't think anyone else would be here," John offered. "Didn't realize the hospital was big enough for its own pastor."

The man huffed out a sad laugh. "Oh, I'm not with the hospital. At least, not officially," he amended. "My wife, you see. She's…" The man swallowed, then glanced at the altar. "She'll be going home soon."

John looked away. "I'm sorry."

They sat in the quiet of the chapel for awhile, both trapped with their own thoughts and memories. John stared at the warming colors of the stained glass as the sun rose, illuminating the room.

"I don't mean to pry," the pastor said, drawing John from his reverie. "But I couldn't help but overhear you as I entered."

John studied the floor, preparing to rebuke anything the man had to say.

"And I would offer that God always forgives, no matter the sin. All you need do is ask."

John looked up, glaring at the pale face and sad eyes of the pastor. "No offense, Padre," he snapped. "But I don't need God's forgiveness. I need his _help_."

The pastor lifted a shoulder. "Sometimes to get one, you have to ask for the other."

John shook his head, gripping the wheels of his chair once more, preparing to move toward the door. "God's never bothered to listen before," he said sullenly. "Don't know why he'd start now."

Now that one of his boys was trapped inside his own body and the other was so far away John didn't know if he could ever get them back. Now that John was weak and wounded and unable to fight. Now that he was broken down enough evil could win.

"Maybe you simply need to remove the hold of the world," the pastor said, standing up. "I find that when I can't find my way to God, it's because I've let the hand of the world keep me down."

John froze. His breath literally stalled in his lungs. "What… what did you say?"

The pastor stopped his slow retreat to look back. "I said that you need to remove—"

"No, no… the part about the hand," John whispered, watching as the colors from the window danced across the pastor's face.

"I've let the hand of the world keep me down."

"Oh, son of a _bitch_," John breathed. "John, you fuckin' _idiot_."

"I'm sorry?" the pastor blinked.

"Not you, Padre," John wheeled down the aisle, forcing the pastor to step aside. "I think you just saved my kid's life."

"I… how…"

John didn't wait to see how the shocked pastor absorbed that bit of news; he headed to the elevator and returned as quickly as he could to Dean's floor. As he passed the nurse's station, he saw Caroline speaking with another nurse.

"Hey!" Caroline looked up at the sound of his voice. "What day is it?"

"Uh… Monday," she replied.

"The date!" John demanded.

"The 15th," she clarified, frowning. "What's the matter?"

"I need you to get Gus Spencer. I need to talk to him," John said.

"He's here!" Caroline exclaimed, looking more confused than ever. "He's waiting in your room."

"Fantastic," John exclaimed, and wheeled himself down the hall. When he entered the room he saw Gus sitting on the chair next to Dean's bed, his normally tanned features pale and pinched, a hand pressed gently against his chest. "Gus!"

Gus turned and started to stand up as John wheeled closer.

"John, I am so sorry," Gus said, wincing and sitting back down. He looked at Dean. "This… this is all my fault, I—"

"Shut up," John ordered. "Listen, I need your help. This hunt ain't over."

"What? But, I thought—"

"Look," John wheeled over to Dean's bedside. He pointed to the angry, red burn on Dean's chest. "You see that?"

Gus nodded.

"A hand-print, right?"

Gus frowned looking closer. "Yeah… yeah, it could be."

"It is!" John exclaimed. "That bitch touched him in the fire. I don't know why I didn't think about it before."

"What are you—"

"He's dying, man," John snapped at Gus. "He's dying because she touched him. Because we didn't finish the job."

"Listen, John, you need to know something," Gus said, waving his hands at John. He stood stiffly and moved around the end of Dean's bed, facing John's wheelchair. "I went to see my mother."

"That doesn't matter right now—"

"_Listen_," Gus implored. "After I heard about… about what happened in the building, I went to see her. She told me Kwaiya had come several months ago, asking for her help. He told her that his mother had returned and that she had asked him to avenge her death. My mother actually used those words," Gus shook his head in disbelief. "I haven't heard Kwaiya say more than ten words his whole life, so my money's on some editorializing liberties here. Anyway… she told me that she gave him a ritual." Gus looked sick, and thrust his hand out against the wall for balance. "She gave him the ritual for summoning the Kappa."

"You saying… did she..."

Gus closed his eyes and looked down. "I don't know. I _don't know_ what she did. She wouldn't say. But I know this: she knew what the Kappa did and she knew who Kwaiya was."

John was quiet a moment. "I honestly can't believe Kwaiya is responsible for the deaths of those kids," he said finally. "He's done nothing but help us. Help Dean."

"If he is…" Gus looked at John with tragic eyes. "Then so is she."

John simply met the man's gaze, saying nothing.

"I have to tell Bonner," Gus choked out. "Those families deserve to know."

"Know what, exactly?" John challenged. "That your mother, who believes in Japanese lore, gave a ritual to the son of a murdered witch, and the witch's ghost gave him the power to summon a creature that killed four children?"

Gus swallowed, pressing his hand against his chest. "Well, when you put it that way…"

"I agree," John said, "that we need to tell Bonner about Kwaiya, but… when I saw him get out of the building… his back was on fire. He may not have made it."

"We're talking about a kid that was beaten and nearly drowned and survived twenty years with his attackers walking free," Gus reminded him. "He's nothing if not a survivor."

"Okay, you've got a point," John conceded. "But that doesn't matter to me right now. Right now, I need your help. You gotta get me back out to that building site."

"What?" Gus exclaimed. "You're going to leave him?" He gestured to Dean.

"Brooke's remains didn't burn up in that fire," John told him. "I think she's determined to take Dean."

"But… why?" Gus looked at John, confused.

John looked at Dean. "Because… he's my kid. And hers was taken from her."

"But, Dean had nothing to do with her death," Gus protested.

"Not her physical one," John said, looking askance at Gus. "Besides… neither did those other children. Her spirit is just looking to cause pain—the kind of pain she was feeling when she died. I think we crossed over the line between retribution and reason when Teresa Bowing was killed."

Gus rubbed his face. "I'm so glad I never had kids," he muttered. "This whole thing is just… just _messed up._" He sighed, then after a moment, he lifted his eyes to John's. "Okay, I'll help you."

"Thanks," John sighed. "I'm going to need—"

"But you're not going anywhere," Gus interrupted.

John started as if Dean had spoken, so familiar were the words. "Listen, Gus, I don't think—"

"I agree," came a voice from the doorway. "You stay with Dean."

John looked past Gus to see Chester standing in the entrance of the room. "Doesn't anyone knock in this town?"

"I'll help," Chester said, coming up to stand next to Gus. "What are we doing?"

"What are you doing here?" Gus asked.

Chester reached up and scratched at his shoulder, the gesture revealing a myriad of tattoos as his sleeve fell back over his bony wrist. "Came to check on him." He nodded toward Dean.

"He's not doing too good, man," Gus said, worried eyes resting on Dean's bruised face. "But I'm getting ready to fix that."

John looked at the thin man, then darted his eyes back to Gus. "You guys don't know what you're getting into, here."

He watched Chester's face as the man's eyes wandered the room, then landed on Dean. He found it remarkable—he'd not yet seen Chester actually _look_ at anything directly.

"I know he's a good kid," Chester said. "And bad things happened to him because he came to this town."

"And I know part of the reason those bad things happened was because of my family," Gus interjected. "Anything else…"

"Is just details," Chester finished.

Their certainty gave him pause. He knew he was in no shape to do this job. He knew he'd risk the whole operation—and with it Dean's life—if he pushed the issue. He knew that sending these two to finish the job was the most logical choice. But his entire being resisted. His skin seemed to shrink-wrap his bones as he took a breath, forcing himself to give in.

He looked Gus square in the face. "You have to dig up her bones—all of them. You have to pour salt over them. And then you have to burn them. Until they're nothing but ash."

"Heavy," Chester commented dryly.

"You got it," Gus nodded. "When?"

"As soon as fucking possible," John said, looking back over at Dean.

"You ready?" Gus looked over at Chester.

"I was born ready," Chester replied.

"Wait," John called. "She's not going to go quietly. Today's the 15th, the anniversary of her death. No matter what we did on Saturday, she'll have plenty of strength today."

Chester pulled out his cell phone.

"What, you've got people that can help protect you from an angry spirit, too?" John scoffed.

Chester lifted a wiry eyebrow. "You think Kwaiya raised himself, man?"

Gus made a strange noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a gasp and a cough. "You're calling the Quileute tribe?"

Chester put the phone to his ear. "Not the whole tribe," he said, turning away. "Just one of them." In moments, they could hear him mumbling quietly in a language neither Gus or John understood.

Gus blinked. "Holy shit."

"This a bad thing?" John asked.

"I just… the Quileute's, man, they're bad ass. There's a reason most of the town avoids them."

"People tend to fear what they don't understand," John said, unconcerned about the mysteries that apparently surrounded the local Native Americans.

"It's not just a matter of not understanding them," Gus protested, squaring his shoulders in protest of John's unintended slight. "They've got some serious mojo."

"Define… mojo," John asked, wishing like hell Dean were awake to hear this.

"_Magic_, man," Gus said. "I don't know what it is… and I don't want to know."

"They're gonna meet us at the site," Chester said, closing his phone.

"That was quick," John commented.

Chester lifted a shoulder. "Doesn't take long to ask for help."

John looked down. "Thank you," he said toward his lap.

"Dean would do the same for us," Gus said. "No doubt in my mind."

With that, the two men turned and left. John pushed himself toward the head of his son's bed, staring at Dean's pale face. With a shaking hand, he gently traced the bruises that framed his boy's eye.

"Mary, if you're watching this," he said, not taking his eyes from Dean's face. "I'm sorry. I'm gonna get him back. I'm gonna get him back…"

He waited for the quiet nod, the flash of memory, even the imagined hand against his cheek. But Mary had turned away from him, it seemed. All that was left was the digitized beat of his son's heart and the heated skin beneath his fingers.

Gus and Chester had been gone for nearly half an hour when Dean's heart began to slow. John wasn't aware of it at first; he'd simply been watching Dean breathe, his mind timing out the mission he'd entrusted to the two men. Soon, though, he realized that the space between the constant beeping was lengthening. It wasn't overt; not enough to bring the nurses running.

But John felt it. And he knew what was happening.

"Aw, no," John shook his head, leaning closer to Dean. "No, you don't. You don't get him. Not him."

He pressed the flat of his palm against Dean's shoulder, his other hand just below the burn on Dean's chest. The skin beneath his fingers was cooler, John realized. He felt Dean's breath speed up as the rise and fall of his son's chest increased.

"Hold on, kiddo," John whispered. "Just hang in there, okay? Keep fighting. You _keep fighting_." His throat tightened and he found himself working to force out enough air to form the words he needed to say, the words Dean needed to hear. "I know you, Dean. You won't let her win. You're too strong for that."

And with a whisper, words came to him in Mary's voice, their insistence heavy in his ear repeating in his head until his tongue tickled with the need to say them. He pulled his lips against his teeth, resistant at first, but her voice was relentless and suddenly John found himself leaning as close to Dean's ear as his broken body would allow.

"There are places I remember," John started, his voice a low rumble, rough around the edges, soft at first. "All my life, though some have changed. Some forever not for better. Some have gone, and some remain."

www

He could hear music.

It wasn't very loud; it wasn't coming from a radio. It sounded almost like someone was singing. Setting aside the now empty mirror, Dean pushed himself to his feet, his legs shaky. He looked around the destroyed room. The music wasn't coming from here.

Tentatively, he moved toward the next room and looked through the doorway. Everything was back where it belonged. Even Sam was there, sitting on the stool in front of the desk, dressed as he'd been when Dean had first seen him: jeans and a blue T-shirt with a turtle on the front. Across his lap was an acoustic guitar.

"Was that you?" Dean asked as he moved into the next room, distantly registering the fact that seeing Sam again didn't trigger quite the amount of relief he'd thought it would.

"Was what me?"

"I thought I heard… singing…" But it hadn't been Sam's voice. Of that he was certain. It had sounded more like… Dad.

"Dude, you know I can't sing," Sam replied.

"Yeah, but," Dean pointed. "You're holding a guitar."

"Huh," Sam looked down. "Go figure."

Shaking his head as if to clear it, Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam. "Why'd you come back?"

"I, uh… didn't know I'd left," Sam replied, his eyebrows disappearing beneath his hairline, his hazel eyes guileless.

Dean rubbed his chest, working to ease an ache that had grown harder to ignore. "I've about had it with this dream crap," he muttered. "None of it makes any sense."

"What do you mean?"

"You're here, you're not, you're young, you're old." Dean scratched at the back of his head. "You say you're basically me, except you ask me questions I can't answer. I'm stuck in the same damn room where we started this damn life. And I can't figure out why I keep seeing that turtle."

"This turtle?" Sam gestured toward his shirt with the neck of the guitar.

"You see any other turtles around here?" Dean snapped.

"Maybe it's because of the hunt."

Dean blinked. "The hunt?"

"The one that got you stuck here," Sam clarified.

"I thought you said you didn't know anything about the turtle," Dean accused, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, I didn't _then_," Sam shrugged.

"You're right, though," Dean sighed, pressing his hand against his chest. "The turtle showed up after the Kappa beat us to hell back on that beach. Only… first time I saw it… it was dead."

"It's a T-shirt now," Sam pointed out helpfully.

Dean rolled his eyes at his brother. A low hum started buzzing in his ears, building pressure in his head as it grew louder. "I've seen it alive, though. In this room. Or, y'know," he stretched his arms out in either direction, pointing to the opposing doors, "those rooms."

"So, maybe it's telling you something… like it's your animal guide or something," Sam shrugged, picking at the guitar strings and drawing out a tangled, discordant tune. "Maybe it's telling you… I don't know… that the answer's been in front of you the whole time. It was dead, now it's alive…"

Dean dropped his hand from his chest and ticked his chin to the side. "Keep talking."

Sam folded his lips down in a shrug. "Okay, so… who do you know that was dead and then wasn't dead?"

"Andrew Marcus," Dean replied immediately.

"So… why is Andrew a turtle?"

If his head wasn't buzzing so loudly, Dean might've laughed at that question. "In the fire," he started, his voice sounding strange, as if it were coming from somewhere outside of his body, "just before the floor fell in… I was gonna tell Dad that Kwaiya summoned the Kappa and killed those kids." He rubbed at the ache in his chest, once more pronounced. "It was the only thing that made sense."

"But it doesn't anymore?" Sam set the guitar aside and stood up, his bare feet making a strange _sh-sh-sh_ sound as he shuffled across the bare floor to the rug where Dean stood.

"I don't know," Dean shook his head. "I don't know what makes sense… Dad said—" The ache thrummed a sharp beat and his heart echoed. "—ah! Damn." He took a steadying breath. "Dad said the spirit couldn't be strong enough to summon the Kappa… she would need a human to do the ritual. But… Kwaiya's… Sam, he's like a little kid. A little kid that's wicked strong, but still… the beating he took when he was young… it changed him."

"Maybe he was just playing it off," Sam proposed. "Biding his time."

Dean shook his head, and the world spun suddenly, crazily around him. "He would've had… so many chances…" He couldn't finish the thought. He thrust out a hand for balance and sighed when Sam reached back, grabbing him.

"You're bleeding again," Sam said softly. "Why are you always bleeding?"

Dean looked down. His T-shirt was turning pink, the pink soaking through to red. He felt no pain accompanying it, though. And he didn't know if he should be afraid. He didn't know if he should feel anything anymore.

"I don't know," he said, his voice barely audible. "I don't know how to stop."

Sam looked beyond him to the room he'd just left. "You made a mess."

Dean nodded, watching the blood seep down into the waistband of his jeans. "I think I kinda… fell apart."

"Why?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. "I forgot what held me together, I guess."

"Do you remember now?" Sam's voice grew deeper, heavier, aged with time his brother hadn't yet seen. Dean felt Sam's fingers grip, tighten, hold.

"What is that?" Dean slurred, looking around for the source of the voice he could now hear inside the incessant hum.

"What?" Sam's now-deep voice asked.

Dean looked at his brother, noting how Sam's hazel eyes were darkening to brown, changing, becoming heavy with sin and sadness. "Seriously, you don't hear that?"

"Hear what, Dean?"

Dean looked to the next room. "I swear I hear someone singing."

www

John felt Dean's muscles suddenly begin to tremble beneath his touch. He raised his eyes to his son's face. "Dean?"

The monitor began to speed up, the beeps becoming an echo of John's own pounding heart. He heard the scurry of feet in the hall and knew he had seconds until the nurses and Dr. Rice swarmed them. He anchored his grip on Dean's arm, just below his son's bandaged wrist.

"What's happening?" Dr. Rice demanded as she put her stethoscope in her ears and pressed the circular face to Dean's chest, her eyes on the heart monitor affixed to the wall above John's head.

John didn't—couldn't—answer her. In his mind, the final lyrics of the song whispered in Mary's voice: _in my life, I've loved you more._

Dr. Rice began to call out orders. John turned away from her, staring at Dean.

"All right, Son," he said, a comfortable edge to his voice. "We've tried it your mother's way. Now you listen to me."

www

Dean moved from the room where Sam stood and stepped into the next white room, devoid of life—all life. No Sam, no turtle, no singing.

"What the hell?" he started, but was forced to stop as the ache in his bleeding chest became a burn, as if his heart were on fire. "Son of a…"

Staggering forward, he grabbed the doorjamb on the far wall, leaving a bloody handprint in his wake.

www

Dean was shaking.

The quiet tremble from before had increased to a full-body, seizure-like shake. Dr. Rice's orders started to include words that John recognized as drugs.

"Wait!" He yelled. "Just wait."

"John, your son—" Dr. Rice started.

"No, he's fighting… just wait!"

"John—"

He looked up at her. "Do _not_ touch him," he growled. He knew what was happening. Gus, Chester, and their Quileute friends were waging war—and winning. And Brooke's hold was becoming desperate. "He's gonna do this."

www

He began to stagger, the room around him seeming to bend and fade, the white shifting to gray, the bed shimmering and disappearing. Disoriented, Dean turned to face the doorway he'd just come through only to find it was gone. There was nothing there—no doorway, no wall. Just… nothing.

He was lost. This had been his home at one time. This had been the place he'd come to look for Sam. This had been the place he'd hidden when the pain had become too much. And it was dissolving around him like rock salt in sea water.

He made his way through the shifting room, feeling drunk, dizzy, and fell to his knees on the other side of the doorway.

He needed to get out of there.

He needed help.

He needed—

"DAD!"

www

"Open your eyes, Dean. That's an order!"

John was leaning forward, aware of the medical personnel crowded into the small space around Dean's bed, aware of the tremors that shook through his son's body, aware of the heat that radiated from the burn on Dean's chest.

He captured all of that and shoved it back, centering all efforts on one thing: anchoring Dean. Bringing him back.

"You are one of the best goddamn soldiers I've ever met, Son. You listen to me," John barked, digging deep and pulling the order from his gut. "You open your eyes. Do it!"

"Dad…"

The room froze. It was as if all breath was sucked from the room and they all hung suspended in a vacuum.

"Dean?" John whispered, moving his hand from Dean's arm to clumsily grasp Dean's reaching fingers.

"Get me out…" Dean replied, his words slightly slurred, barely audible.

"I'm here, Son. I've got you."

"Dad…"

"You can do this, Dean. Open your eyes. Don't you let her keep you."

He watched as Dean's eyes rolled beneath his closed lids, as his brow folded, a line bisecting his brow. He leaned closer, his face directly above his son's. Dean's chest heaved, his breath hammering through barely-parted lips as the effort to escape took its toll.

"You can do this," John repeated, his words clear. "Come on back to me, Dean."

The room flinched as Dean raised a hand and clapped it with a resounding _smack_ on the side of John's face, holding his father still. As John watched, his body tense, Dean pried open heavy eyes and looked directly at him.

"Dad?"

"There you are," John replied, ignoring the tears that now blurred his vision. "Took you long enough."

Dean blinked rapidly, breath hammering through his nose, the heart monitor echoing loudly in the quiet room. "You're here," Dean whispered. "You're here."

"Where else would I be?" John replied, easing back into his chair, his back muscles throbbing in protest from his efforts. Dean's fingers skipped and skidding along his face as he pulled away. He let that hand fall to Dean's side, but didn't release his son's other hand.

Dr. Rice's hands seemed to flow over Dean like mercury, checking this, verifying that. She called out more orders to her ever-ready staff and Dean lay still under her ministrations, seemingly unable to take it all in. Finally satisfied that Dean wasn't going to expire before her eyes, Dr. Rice took a step back, and father and son sighed in unison.

Dean looked around, his eyes bleary and slightly confused. "Is Sam here?" he asked in a thick voice. Dr. Rice held a cup of water with a straw to his lips.

John didn't even flinch at the question. "No, Son. He's not here."

Dean drank deeply, closing his eyes as he did so, then opened them wide. "Weird. I coulda sworn…"

"Remarkable," Dr. Rice broke in. John looked over, too drained to ask. She was staring at Dean's chest. John looked down and saw that the angry, seeping wound had closed, leaving simply a sunburned-like handprint in its wake. "I've never seen anything like it."

John licked his lips. "I'll explain it to you sometime," he said.

The phone between the beds rang and two of the nurses cried out in surprise, then retreated with nervous laughter. Her eyes still on Dean, Dr. Rice picked up the receiver. She frowned, then handed the phone to John.

"It's Gus Spencer."

John met Dean's eyes, promising him an explanation with a silent nod. "Good job," John said into the phone before Gus could speak.

The contractor was short of breath. _"Dean's okay?"_

"He's awake," John confirmed. "And the handprint is healing."

"_Hot damn,"_ Gus exclaimed. John heard him yell to someone nearby. _"It worked!"_

"You two okay?"

"_We're fine," _Gus replied. _"Not ready to make a habit of this, though._"

"Yeah, I can understand that."

"_Got someone here who wants to talk to you_."

John looked at Dean, reassured as his son's green eyes stayed steady on his face. "Who?"

"_Kwaiya's Quileute father,"_ Gus said.

"Oh, yeah?" John pulled his lower lip in against his teeth, feeling the tickle of whiskers brushagainst his upper lip. "He know where Kwaiya is?"

"He may not, but I do," came a voice from behind John.

He turned to see a gray-faced Sheriff Bonner. "Gus, hang tight a sec."

Bonner looked down at the hat he was twisting in his hands. "I've got Matt Lawson down at my jail," he said to the shock of all Brinnon townspeople present. "He apparently tried to finish the job that his brother started twenty years ago."

"Where's Kwaiya?" Dean asked, his ravaged voice demanding the attention of the distraught-looking sheriff.

"He's at the jail, too," Bonner said.

"Is he dead?" Dean said.

John looked at his son, shock and disbelief silencing his need to protest such an injustice.

Bonner shook his head, but John knew something had happened. Something bad.

"Wait," John said. "Just… just wait. Gus?"

"_I heard part of that,"_ Gus replied, his voice bereft.

"All of you get back here. On the double."

Gus' _Yes, Sir_ was lost as John passed the phone back to Dr. Rice.

"I'm sorry, I'm going to have to insist that we table this for later when Dean—"

"No!" John and Dean's unified protest cut off Dr. Rice's statement.

Dean looked at John, using the anchor of their still-joined fingers to punctuate his sentence. "Dad, I need to know."

John nodded. He shot a look at Dr. Rice who glared reproachfully back for almost a full minute before relenting and motioning to the doorway with her head. She pointed at John.

"You owe me details, John," she snapped.

John nodded wearily, releasing Dean's hand and rubbing his face as the door swung shut behind the exiting medical staff.

"Dad?"

John looked at his son, dizzy with the relief of just hearing Dean speak.

"Thanks."

"This was all you, Dean," John protested. "This was your fight."

Dean pressed his lips flat, his gaze hitting nothing. After a moment he looked up slowly, as if the lashes that seemed to stitch his eyes to his face each weighed a hundred pounds.

"I wouldn't have made it without you," Dean said, the frank honesty in his gaze becoming John's undoing. He had to look away. Dean continued. "I heard you, y'know."

"Heard me what?"

"I heard you… singing… to me."

John didn't reply. His throat was too tight. Words shouted in desperate anger days before seemed to build and resonate in his memory, spreading and growing until John seemed to feel them like physical blows, the internal beating beginning with _if you walk out that door, don't you come back_ and ending with _until I say otherwise_.

"Dad," Dean was saying, his voice drawing him back, his eyes heavy on John's. "Sam was there."

"Where?"

"Wherever I was," Dean said, licking his lips sluggishly. John was too far away to hand him the water glass once more, but Dean continued. "I miss him."

"I know you do, Son."

"You do, too."

John nodded.

"Dad… in the fire… before you showed up." Dean's eyes were growing visibly heavy as he spoke, but John watched with admiration as he forced them open. "Cole said that family stuck up for each other… that the town was a family."

"Yeah," John said softly. "Bonner said pretty much the same thing."

"But…" Dean continued, "Cole killed those men because he thought they'd betrayed his father somehow… and he tried to beat his own brother to death."

John nodded again, watching Dean watch him.

"We can't be that kind of a family," Dean concluded.

"We're not!" John exclaimed in surprise.

"We could be, though. As soon as we stop… needing each other," Dean slurred, his eyes drifting shut, then darting open once more. "We could be."

John looked down. "I've been thinking, Dean."

"Hmmm?"

John dropped his voice a bit, secretly hoping Dean would sleep through his next sentence. "Maybe when all this is over… when we're healed up… maybe we head south… look in on Sam."

"Yeah," Dean mumbled. "Yeah..."

John lifted a tired, heavy hand and rested it on Dean's gently fisted one. "Rest, Son," he said. "Rest while you can."

He swallowed hard as Dean turned his hand to grasp his father's in an almost-unconscious gesture of connection.

* * *

**a/n**: I know, I know… but I promise everything has an explanation before the end. Perhaps not the one some of you want, but it's what's been planned since the beginning of the story. I'll brace myself for your thoughts.

I've had a few people help me keep things tidy in this story—before and after posting. My own impatience makes it so that many of you read a typo-laden chapter, but thanks to friends (you know who you are), I can go back in a fix some errors. I thank you for patiently reading, regardless of mistakes, and I hope you come back to see this through to the end.

**Playlist**:

_In My Life_ by The Beatles


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer/ Spoilers**: See Chapter 1

**a/n**: Every time I get to the last chapter of a fic, I think of Frodo's line in Tolkien's epic, _Return of the Kings_: "I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things." I know. I'm a geek.

While not the end of _all_ things, writing the end of a fic is emotional for me because of the journey it's taken me on. I hope it's been a journey you have enjoyed as you read, even if some of the plot twists or characters were a little hard to follow. The onus is on me to clarify or simplify next time 'round.

I'm not exactly sure what possessed me to write this story centering on just these two characters. I will say I'm exceedingly glad I did, _and_ I won't be writing another SPN story that is not primarily focused on the two brothers. Though I knew going in that Sam would only be included in memory (or dream), I missed writing the dynamic of the two brothers.

And since I'm growing closer to keeping all of the promises I made in the fanfic world and ending (even if just temporarily) this sojourn, I want the last few stories I write to include the brothers I fell in love with. Thank you, though, for indulging me as I tried to climb inside the skin of my favorite brother and the father who helped shape the man he became. Lastly, I have a longer a/n at the close of the chapter with some information some of you have asked me for.

With that, I give you the close of this story, and I thank you for spending time with me.

Oh, and Terry, my good friend, thank you for the sanity. Though there are times you share what can't be spared. *wink*

* * *

_Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration._

_~Charles Dickens_

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It had taken several moments of skimming the surface of consciousness for Dean to really register the fact that pain was determined to be his constant companion.

He'd fought so hard to leave that room, that horrible, tiny, white room. Breaking through to what he knew was real—knew because of the noise, because of the frenetic energy that beat against him, because of the hands touching, checking, maintaining his tenuous grip on life—was akin to surviving a battle. The only thing that had kept him from backsliding into the white abyss that waited patiently for him was the hand that held his.

His father's hand.

There'd been several minutes of crystal clarity as people spoke around and to him; an awareness so bright it seemed to tweak the air, turn it glinty. And yet, superimposed over everything like a life-sized faded photograph, the image of his dream, of Sam with his shaggy hair shadowing his innocent eyes, slid in and out of focus until Dean had to close his eyes, turn his face away from the sight.

"Rest, Son," John said. "Rest while you can."

Dean felt John's hand on his, heavy with worry and relief, and he instinctively turned his own to hold his dad close. He wasn't ready to let go. He was so sure he'd fall.

"Take it easy, Dean."

Muscle memory had his body reacting to the softly spoken order. His shoulders released the tight hold he didn't realize he'd been maintaining, but without that hold, an all-too-familiar heat began to work its way up from his belly through his limbs to beat a pulse that was impossible to ignore.

"They all gone?" Dean asked, frustrated that his lips were too heavy to wrap around his words. He sounded like he'd had one too many.

"Yeah, they're gone," John replied. "Think you can sleep?"

Dean shook his head slowly, carefully. He could hear his hair rustle against the pillow but the motion of denial sent a soundless reverberation from the base of his skull down his spine and settled with vengeance along his right leg. He tried to bite back the groan, but suffered the realization that his vulnerability had long ago been laid bare before his father.

"You hurting?"

"Yeah," Dean whispered, slightly stunned by the sheer weight of the pain. "My l-leg," he stuttered. And what the hell was going on with the knife in his ribs? "Somethin's pokin'…m'side."

"Nothing is poking you, Dean," John replied.

Dean heard his father shift; the wheelchair he knew John had to be sitting in creaked with the motion. The heavy hand—skin calloused in familiar patches where John had gripped a gun so often over the years—patted him as it retreated. Dean wanted to grab him back, but the knife suddenly twisted roughly.

"Easy," John was saying. "I called the nurse."

He hadn't realized he'd made another noise, but his distress was apparently more than evident to his watchful father.

"What happened to me?"

"You fell through the floor," John replied.

In a rush, much the same as the sound he'd heard when cuffed to that damn post, the fire came back to him. It was practically _inside_ of him. With a disorienting sense of vertigo, he remembered the fall. He remembered the weightless moment when he seemed to hang, suspended by the waves of heat. And he remembered landing, the crash burning through him as he sank into the murk of smoke and flames and nothingness.

"Did I…burn?" Dean asked, his voice choked. He worked his eyes open, parting them enough to take in the sight of his father's face pulled taut with memory.

"Your leg," John replied. "Not too bad, but…"

It throbbed then, as if in reaction to John's words. _Throb_ wasn't even an accurate word. There was no downward slope of relief sliding off the back of the climax of pain. It was constant. A high-note held. A nail running the length of a chalkboard the size of a football field.

His eyes fluttered closed, the effort of sight too much to ask of his overtaxed brain.

And John's hand was on his again. John's voice was in his ear. The words were meaningless; Dean couldn't find the beginning or the end inside the sound. It was simply the rumble, the rhythm, the reassurance that he wasn't alone with the pain. That there was another by his side.

He felt a cool flood in his arm and suddenly he could breathe again. The fire in his body turned quickly to steam and the teeth-clenching ache fluttered to nothing like a leaf falling slowly to earth. He wanted to thank whoever it was that finally removed the knife from his side—it was so much easier to take a breath without that there—but his mouth had disappeared.

Dean knew he wasn't really asleep. For one, he could still hear voices. For another, he didn't see that damn room. And there hadn't been a night since coming to Brinnon that he hadn't at least visited the white room. But now he simply floated in a gray haze, weightless and pain-free.

He could get used to this.

The noise of words swam around him like ghosts of voices. It was like listening to a short-wave radio with a bad antenna. Language bounced into sudden clarity—meaning lost without the benefit of context—and then faded once more. After a while, the voices seemed to multiply. Most were unfamiliar. But one stood out. One was constant.

His father's.

It took the protection of the gray haven he was enjoying for Dean to register the significance of what he'd opened his eyes to. _John had stayed_. For the first time in Dean's memory, John hadn't left to fight the good fight. He'd stayed by his side; he'd fought for him, encouraged him, drew him out of the empty whiteness of that room.

How had he made it? Had the fire taken Brooke Marcus' spirit? Had there been a ritual John performed at the hospital? What had saved him?

"Why am I still here?" he wondered, not realizing it was aloud until he felt the tickle of air across his lips, felt his tongue hit the backs of his teeth.

He reached up with a clumsy, awkward hand and touched fingers that felt almost wooden against his chapped lips. His mouth was there after all.

"Dean?" John's voice: partly surprised, partly amused, somewhat worried.

Dean rubbed his fingers across the scruff on his chin, blinking the too-bright world into focus. There were several people in the room, but he couldn't pull any of their faces into clarity. He fumbled his fingers along his cheekbone and rubbed at the grit in his eyes, wincing slightly as he made contact with a bruise.

The feel of something like cotton against his cheek drew his attention and he lifted his hand to stare in confusion at the bandage wrapped around his wrist.

"_They handcuffed her. Her wrist was bleeding, like she'd been tied up. She must've tried to fight her way free."_

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, awareness climbing ladder rungs in a hurry to reach the top. He lifted his other arm, the IV lines tethered to the crook of his elbow, and saw that bandages were wrapped around that wrist as well. "Bastard cuffed me," he said, his burning eyes shifting blurry focus from his arms to his dad's face.

John was leaning forward in his wheelchair, his forearms braced on his armrests, watching Dean intently.

"She got him," Dean asked, swallowing thickly. "Didn't she?"

John nodded. "Yeah, kid," he said. "She got him."

Dean saw him nod to someone on the other side of the bed. In seconds, a straw was hovering near his lips and he grasped it gratefully, filling his mouth with cool water and feeling it slip through his whole body as he swallowed.

"You okay?" John asked.

"Think so," Dean replied, drinking again.

"You were out like a light after they gave you the pain meds," John informed him.

"I wasn't asleep," Dean said, dropping his head back against the pillows and licking his lips. Sleep would have meant dreaming and dreaming meant seeing Sam without really seeing him.

He saw John grin as if humoring him. "You've been out for about three hours, Dean," he said.

"I heard you talking," Dean looked around, recognizing, finally, some of other faces in the room.

Gus and Chester leaned against the back wall with another man—a large, heavily muscled Native American who seemed to strip Dean to the bone in a glance. A man in a sheriff's uniform stood next to a pretty black woman near Dean's bed. And sitting on the other bed in the room was Kwaiya.

"Maybe you were dreaming," the black woman suggested gently.

"No." Dean shook his head, fumbling for the bed controls and tipped the head of the bed up so that he could see them more easily. He shot a glare at the woman, feeling off-balance, out of step somehow under her sympathetic gaze.

John cleared his throat, and Dean looked over quickly at the sound. He recognized the look on John's face. It was the same look he'd had for years when they'd had to duck Social Services or explain absences to school principals. _Be quiet and let me handle this_.

"Dean," John said. "This is Dr. Rice. She's, uh…she's been taking care of you. Of us."

Somewhat mollified, Dean tipped his chin up at Dr. Rice by way of greeting. "Thanks, Doc," he said grudgingly, not quite understanding the quick half-smile she shot in John's direction.

He looked across the room at Gus, noting the clean, white bandages that wrapped the man's chest beneath his opened shirt, and the same markings of soot covering both his and Chester's hands and face.

"What did you mean?" John was asking him.

Blinking over at his father, all-too aware of the many sets of eyes trained on him, Dean pulled his brow together in a frown of confusion.

"You asked why you were still here," John clarified. "You mean at the hospital?" The level of _you've gotta be shitting me_ in John's tone snapped Dean to attention and he squared his shoulders slightly, aware of the pinch that motion caused in his side.

"Did the fire—" he glanced quickly at the others in the room, the back at John. He'd missed time, and too much had obviously happened for him to assume anything. "Did it…take care of…y'know…_things_?"

He caught Gus rubbing his face tiredly out of the corner of his eyes and waited for John to answer.

"Not exactly," John sighed, sinking back against the sling of the wheelchair. Dean hadn't seen his father look so…so _worn down_ in a long time. It was as if the last few hours had somehow been longer for John, worry and frustration aging him in ways Dean had yet to understand. "What do you remember from the fire, Dean?"

Pressing his lips together hesitantly, Dean looked at Gus and Chester, then slid his eyes to the sheriff. Apparently following his line of worry, John assured him, "It's okay, Son. They're okay."

Dean looked back quickly, absorbing the level of resignation on John's face.

"I, uh," he started, dropping his eyes to his lap, his sight turning inward, skipping over the white room, and rolling back into the heat of the fire. "I remember Cole jumping on me. I fought him, but…I was wrecked. I remember it getting really cold," he looked quickly at his father, seeing John nod in a shared memory. "And I knew Brooke's spirit was there. She—" he darted a look at the sheriff, "—she killed Cole. Impaled him on something. He was dead before he started burning."

The sheriff sighed, seeming to fold in on himself, and nodded.

"Then what?" John pressed.

Dean rolled his neck, feeling the motion in his hip joints. "She came after me. She…I remember she reached out for me and…" he lifted a shoulder carefully. "I don't remember anything after that. Anything _real_ anyway."

"Real?" John asked.

Dean looked away and down, not wanting to go into too much detail with six strangers staring at him. "It was like I was kinda…trapped. In a dream."

"With Sam," John said softly, as if remembering something Dean had said.

Dean nodded silently.

"It was her," John told him. "She touched you." He pointed to Dean's chest.

Dean reached up and rubbed at his sternum, remembering the blood that seemed to pour from him in the white room. The skin above his wrapped ribs felt tender and tight, as if he'd spent too many hours in the sun.

"_You're bleeding again…why are you always bleeding?"_

"So the fire didn't get her?"

John shook his head. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Gus and Chester. "These guys did."

Gaping in astonishment, Dean looked at his former boss. "Wait, what?"

Gus looked at him, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners as the dirt creased with his smile. He tipped his head to the left toward Chester. "He dug, I salted," he pointed to the large Native American man, "he lit her up."

"She come after you?" Dean asked.

"Oh, hell yeah," Gus huffed.

Chester nodded sagely. "She wasn't ready to go."

"And…you were…you did it?" Dean asked, working to compute the significance behind what he was hearing.

Someone else had finished the hunt. Someone else had vanquished the spirit. John Winchester, mister all-go-no-quit, _we do what we do and we shut up about it _hadn't left him.

_You stayed. _He looked at his father. _You picked me_.

Gus coughed into his fist, drawing Dean's attention once more. "We had some help."

As if on cue, all eyes except John's turned to the Native American man next to Chester. As Dean watched, he straightened away from the wall and came to stand at the foot Dean's bed as if preparing to report. Dean watched the man's gaze track over to Kwaiya and his gut panged at the sorrow and regret he saw slice through the dark eyes.

"I am Powell, Kwaiya's father," he said, his voice rumbling like the bass beat of a rock song. "And I have much to atone for."

Dean looked over at Kwaiya, truly seeing him for the first time since waking up. The big man was curled in on himself, his clothes ill-fitting and loose over thick bandages that practically encased his torso. His head hung low, dark hair streaming around his face so that his eyes weren't visible. His hands were curved in, one resting on his lap, the other hanging limply down his side.

Stomach clenching at the sight of such defeat, Dean closed his burning eyes for a moment.

"You did it, didn't you? You summoned the Kappa," Dean said, his voice rough-edged and flayed with regret. He knew he was right. He knew Sam—or rather the part of himself that had become Sam—had been right: Kwaiya had simply been biding his time.

But he wanted _so badly_ to be wrong.

"Hold up, the what?" the sheriff spoke up for the first time.

Dean ignored him. He kept his eyes on the Kwaiya, waiting for the man's reply. He could feel John's gaze steady on his face. The silent tension in the room was broken only by the steady monitor that still tracked Dean's heart, reminding him that he was _here_.

When Kwaiya said nothing, Dean looked over at Powell, searching there for the confirmation or denial that would help him decide what to think next. He felt as if they were all about to be handed a sentence, a prediction on how they would henceforth define right and wrong, and he wondered if he'd ever really be able to see the gray in a situation again.

"Kwaiya had an enemy," Powell began, his dark eyes never leaving Dean's face. "An enemy that was smarter than him. There is no teacher like an enemy. No one but your enemy will ever tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. And only the enemy can show you where you are weak and where you are strong."

"Who was his enemy?" Dean asked, surprised that his voice was still so clear.

The man dropped his eyes, then turned to face the sheriff. "You know," he said quietly, though his voice seemed to fill the room. "You all know. You have known for years."

The Sheriff lifted his hands in an unconscious gesture of surrender. "Now wait a minute," he said. "You can't go accusing—"

Powell cut him off, looking back at Dean. "The enemy tells you what you can do to him, and what you can stop him from doing to you."

"But how did he know what to do?" Dean asked, shaking his head. "It's the only thing that doesn't fit." He looked over at Kwaiya. "How did you know, man?"

Kwaiya seemed to have retreated inside himself. The shell of the human man who sat in their midst was not longer the lumbering guardian of Marissa, nor the lucky savior of Dean. He wasn't the same man who'd scaled the wall of a burning building to drop a metal bar at John's feet so that he was able to free his son. He wasn't even the man who'd found a crack in the walls of an inferno to make his escape.

He'd been broken. Worse than when he was a child. Looking at him now, Dean saw that Andrew Marcus had died today and in his place was a machine wearing human armor. It was the first time Dean could remember a person not of his family having the power to bruise his heart so thoroughly.

"Hey," Dean barked, hissing in pain as the noise punched the air and pulled harshly against his ribs. He slid a hand to his side. "Hey, man, I'm talking to you. Look at me."

Kwaiya didn't move.

"_Look_ at me," Dean almost pleaded.

_Tell me you didn't kill those kids. _He didn't know why he needed Kwaiya to be innocent; he wasn't sure when along the way he'd started to care. It was more than simply the fact that the big man had rescued him, had carried him from danger.

It was the knowledge that Andrew Marcus had been innocent and someone had taken that from him. Andrew Marcus had been a boy who'd lost his childhood and his mother and had been powerless to stop either event. And he wasn't sure where inside him—where everything had a category and a classification—to put the fact Andrew Marcus had become someone who could release a monster onto the world.

"How the hell—" Dean clenched his teeth as he leaned a bit forward, his whole focus on the hollow man who sat with head bowed in front of him. "How did you do it? Huh? You're no witch!"

"Dean," John started. Dean saw his father reach for him out of the corner of his eyes and he pulled in on himself, away from John's touch. _Not now…I can't deal with that…not now._

As they talked, Dr. Rice quietly moved the sheriff away from his protective stance next to Kwaiya and began to inspect the big man's wounds and the bandage job, offering him water, smoothing back his hair.

"Let me tell him," Gus spoke up, stepping away from the wall and approaching Dean's bed. He stood awkwardly, his hands clasped behind his back, and kept his distance from Kwaiya's father, as if uncertain of the man's true powers. "I talked to my mother and, uh, she told me that Kwaiya had come to see her." He glanced guiltily at the Quileute. "She gave him the ritual."

Dean shook his head. "But he couldn't have known how to use it."

"He knew," the Quileute man said. "He knew because we told him that one day he would be able to take his revenge. We healed him with the knowledge that one day he would be strong enough."

Dean closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"This has been a lot of information," Dr. Rice spoke up as if from the far end of a tunnel. "Maybe we should—"

"She told me," Kwaiya said suddenly, the deep rumble of his voice a shadow of his father's bass. The room went silent and Dean found himself holding his breath, his heart beating rapidly against his ribs, betrayed by the quickening bleat of the monitor.

"She told you what?" Dean said in an almost-whisper.

"She told me I was hers," Kwaiya said, not raising his head. "I wanted to be with her."

Dean looked at John, catching in that quick glance the expression of horrified understanding ghosting Gus' features.

"Hell, Dad. _She_ did it," Dean whispered. "Not him." He grabbed onto the thought like a lifeline, ignoring the pang in his gut that reminded him of his father's words: _Dean, I called a few guys. I was right. Even if she had been a witch, no spirit could have…_

"Dean," John said softly, shaking his head.

"You said yourself she was powerful, showing up in the daylight like that. Maybe we were wrong. We coulda been wrong." Dean clenched his jaw, closing off the end of his words, hearing the plea laced through each one. He hated the need he heard there.

John looked down, and Dean felt him searching for words. "She gave him the power, Dean. She told him what to do…guided him, maybe, but…he's the one that performed the ritual." He looked up and pinned Dean with his dark eyes, fathomless with regret. "_He's_ the one that brought the Kappa down on those kids."

Dean felt his heart beat behind his eyes and reached up to rub his face. "So…to punish the people responsible—in a roundabout way—for his mother's death, he… kills those kids?"

"Grief can manifest itself in pain so immense that can become real beyond the grave," Powell said solemnly.

Dean glared at him. "Oh, thanks, Confucius," he snapped. "That just makes it all better. Y'know it didn't just take those kids away. It drowned them and then…"

He couldn't finish the sentence; the idea of the little bodies with the empty eye sockets was too much for him in the moment. It was unnecessary anyway. The people of Brinnon congregated in the room wouldn't soon forget the price those children had paid for the sins of their fathers.

Powell didn't react. "It was never up to me. It wasn't up to Kwaiya, either. Ultimately, his mother decided they should die. No other magic—not even the magic of our people—could have brought this about."

"You sure?" Gus interjected. "That was some impressive magic that I saw today, keeping that spirit away from us."

The Quileute man dropped his head, his shoulders bowing sadly. "That was for protection. That was clean magic. What Kwaiya needed…that power could have only come from a hate so strong—"

"And you're just okay with this?" Dean said, feeling the energy seep out of him, wanting suddenly for everyone to go away, leave him alone. It was too much. His body seemed to shimmer from the inside out, wanting desperately to hide inside the anonymity he usually shunned.

Powell turned away, facing the outside window, his eyes on the retreating sun as it leached the life and color from the world. "When I found my son," he said gravely, "he was near death. The hate that fueled the spirit's powers did not begin with her. It began with the men who destroyed that boy. _They_ are to blame for the death of the children. All of the children. Including the son of Brooke Marcus."

"So, you knew," Dean interrupted. "You knew all this time what those people did to him—to his mom. And you didn't say anything."

Powell looked over his shoulder at Dean, his eyes incensed. "Who would have listened?" He turned, facing Gus. "You?" He rotated again, facing the sheriff. "You?" Advancing on the sheriff, he continued. "No one wanted him when we found him, beaten, destroyed, ruined. No one wanted to know the truth then. Only more death opened your eyes. Only the loss of your own made you look. Made you see!"

"Listen, you don't have any _proof _that the Lawson's are responsible for what happened to that boy…er, to…to him," the sheriff tried, gesturing toward Kwaiya.

"Bonner," John spoke up, addressing the sheriff. "Shut up."

Dean watched the sheriff's mouth open and close, a helpless, impotent gesture of denial.

"He's right, though," Dean said softly, searching Kwaiya's downturned face for any sign of life. "There isn't any proof. Not really. I mean, everything Cole told me basically burned up with him. Without anyone to corroborate—"

"What about Matt?" Gus interjected.

Dean looked up. "Matt? Matt Lawson?"

Gus nodded. "Sheriff Bonner stopped him from trying to kill Kwaiya."

"It wasn't exactly like that," Bonner amended, looking around for support and finding none. "I took Marissa Teller home. Cole had…" he pressed his lips flat as if it hurt to say the next words, "worked her over pretty good. Kwaiya was there. I don't know if he was waiting for her, or checking on her, but…" his voice trailed off.

Dean heard Chester clear his throat and looked over at the thin man.

"_Cole's had it in for the guy ever since I can remember…"_

"Cole hated Kwaiya," Dean said, catching Chester's eyes. The man's narrow face seemed to shrink further as the skin around his mouth tightened. "Why?"

Chester lifted a bony shoulder. "I just thought it was 'cause of Marissa falling for that boy, Seth, and not him."

"But it wasn't, was it?" Dean looked at Kwaiya's father. "He didn't really know why, but Cole knew Kwaiya. It was like…he was being haunted by someone who wasn't dead."

"Still, that doesn't explain why you think Matt Lawson could—" Bonner cut his words off as he caught the look John shot him.

Dean glanced at the sheriff. "Matt was part of all this. I kinda doubt there was anything that one of those guys did without the other. Jake Teller's wife even thought Matt was the one who raped her when Cole said it was him…makes me think Matt must've been there."

Bonner was rubbing his face and nodding. Dean knew then he'd heard about the Teller woman's rape. He pushed forward while he had Bonner's horrified attention.

"Matt and Cole found out that Brooke wanted to leave their dad and instead of being pissed off at their dad for swinging that way, they decided to take Andrew." He rubbed his forehead, trying to relieve the pressure building behind his eyes. "When she didn't go back to him, they tried to kill him. Thought they had, actually. They took his bloody shirt back as proof and their mom trumped up the story of Brooke being a witch and killing her own son to cover what Matt and Cole had done."

Dean sagged back against the bed, wrung out. He'd spent his life shirking the supposed righteousness of people who thought they knew what was best for his family while his father—and then later himself and Sam—risked death to keep those same people safe from the darkness that permeated so many parts of their lives.

He'd seen vengeful spirits, creatures hell-bent on bringing about death and pain. He'd seen monsters most only thought existed in fairytales and books. He'd learned young that the dark was only scary if he didn't have a weapon in his hands.

But all of that paled in comparison to the iniquity the people of this town had committed. It was a stunning, soul-numbing realization that the very beings he and his family risked their lives to protect were capable of visiting more evil upon each other than nearly all of the supernatural beings his family had ever defeated.

The room was quiet around him. He suddenly lacked the energy to do anything but breathe, his eyes finding rest on his father's hands. John held his right with his left, slowly turning his wedding ring in that absentminded way that made Dean unconsciously long for his mother.

"Matt Lawson," Bonner spoke up, his voice craggy and lost, "is at my jail facing charges of attempted murder. When I took Marissa home, Kwaiya was there, like I said. But apparently word of the fire got out, and Matt found out about his brother, and…well, before I could do much, he showed up at the Teller's and opened fire."

No one moved. Dean simply waited for the next part. He was tired of this town. Of these people. Of this pain. He was tired of giving so much for so little. He wanted to erase the folded look of weariness and hurt from his father's face. He wanted his brother back.

He wanted to go home. If he could remember where that was.

"Matt Lawson was the one that dug up the box," Gus said suddenly.

"Box?" Bonner inquired.

Dean kept his eyes on nothing, unfocused, exhaustion reaching up behind him to pull him down like the fingers of a too-clingy lover. He wanted to see his father, but the effort of moving his head suddenly seemed too much.

"There was a box of letters, a blood-stained shirt, and Brooke's pentagram buried out behind the construction site," Gus said. "I caught Matt digging it up after Jim Sutcliff was killed."

"Where is it now?"

"We have it," John replied in a hollow voice.

"I'll need that," Bonner said. "It's evidence."

"Means nothing to me, man," John sighed.

Dean could hear his father distancing himself from these people, this town. The hunt was over. The Kappa had long since been defeated and the spirit that provided the power to summon it had been vanquished. They'd done their job; it was time to leave. But they were broken and bruised and the heaviness of what they had survived seemed to inexplicably bind them to this web-like saga.

"My point is," Gus said, an edge to his deep voice. "You've got your proof right there."

"How do you figure?" Bonner inquired.

"Matt knew the box was there because _he buried it_. He buried the box of items from two people his family murdered—or thought they murdered," Gus finished.

"So you're saying I should charge Matt Lawson with all of this?"

"None of us walk away clean from this, Sheriff." That was Chester's voice, Dean realized. At this he did turn his head, compelled to hear what the man would say next. "We're all to blame for what's happened here. If you want to get down to it, you could charge me."

"For what?"

"For being a friend of the Quileute," Chester shrugged. "Their tribe saved Andrew Marcus. They taught him how to hide in the open. Basically, they told him to listen for the spirit of his mother to tell him when the time was right."

"I'm not arresting you, Chester," Bonner sighed.

"You could arrest me," Gus offered. "I put on the extension to the building that desecrated Brooke's grave." He gestured to Kwaiya's father who had moved away from the window to stand next to his adopted son and was resting a gentle hand on Kwaiya's wounded back. "He just said that Kwaiya wouldn't have been able to do what he did without his mom's…y'know, power, or whatever. Or, hell, speaking of moms—he wouldn't have been able to summon the Kappa without mine. How about you go drag her ninety-year-old self to your jail?"

"Now, just hold up a minute! I'm not arresting anyone else!" Bonner held up his hands as if pushing them all away. "Especially not some ninety-year-old lady."

"What are you going to do, Sheriff?" John asked.

Bonner was quiet. Dean watched the play of emotions that chased each other across the man's face. "I have a man in custody suspected of being directly or indirectly responsible for one attempted murder, one assault, and…" He ticked out his fingers as he counted quietly. "Nine murders dating back to 1981. His accomplice, apparently, has already been sentenced."

He sighed and moved across the room to stand in the window space recently occupied by Kwaiya's father, his back to the room. All eyes followed him, waiting.

"I have a mentally…challenged…man in custody suspected of being responsible for four murders. A plea of insanity, however, is one that would definitely hold up in court." Bonner sighed again and Dean watched him rub at the back of his neck. "He'd live the rest of his days in a state institution."

"I will take him home," Kwaiya's father spoke up.

The room seemed to shift around Dean. He turned his head and saw Powell standing in the doorway, his arm cradling Kwaiya's bent body as if the other man's size was of no significance. Dr. Rice stood on the other side, her cheeks wet with tears, a blanket in her hands ready to hand to them.

"That man is under arrest," Bonner protested, finger pointing at Kwaiya as he crossed the room.

"He is in my custody," Powell said solemnly. "When you are ready for him to stand trial, you may collect him. And with him, his family."

Bonner looked first at Gus and Chester who looked away, then turned to face John and Dean who stared back. Dean knew he sure as hell wasn't going to stop this man from taking Kwaiya away, keeping him safe, and he felt his father's agreement in his stony silence. Helplessly, he turned back to the two men blocking the light from the opened door.

"We can't survive more," Bonner admitted softly. "We can't. This town…this town is dying. It has to be over. All of this…it has to be over."

Kwaiya raised his head and Dean flinched at the sight of the man's sunken cheeks and shadowed eyes. He looked across the room, not at Bonner, but at Dean. His cracked lips parted and his chin trembled slightly as he spoke.

"It is over," he said.

Dean felt something sear through him, bouncing around in the hollow of his chest and jamming his throat. He tried to swallow past it but it built up, threatening to escape through his eyes as Kwaiya continued to look at him. He blinked, but Kwaiya didn't look away.

"It is over," the big man repeated.

"I know, man," Dean choked out. "I know."

With that, Kwaiya's father turned him, guiding him through the door, his body language declaring to everyone watching them leave that he would be by his adopted son's side, no matter the consequences of his actions. Dean wet his lips, closing his eyes as they disappeared from sight, and lay his head back against the pillow. He felt tears slip quietly from behind his closed lids and skip down either side of his face.

The room seemed to sigh and he heard motion, subdued voices, parting words. He didn't open his eyes, didn't move. He wanted more oblivion, more escape from the rapidly returning pain, but he knew that after this, such a thing may no longer be possible.

This had been more than a hunt gone sideways. This had been innocence lost on levels deeper than Dean had the strength to assimilate.

A creak of a wheel drew his attention and he parted his eyes to look toward where John had last been. The side of his bed was vacant.

"Dad?" He rasped, turning his head.

John was now positioned between their beds, watching him.

"They're gone," John answered his unspoken question.

_What do we do now, huh?_ Dean wanted to ask, but was honestly afraid of the answer. Or lack thereof.

"You look like hell," Dean commented.

"What was that you said about a pot and a kettle?"

Dean pulled the corner of his mouth up in a tired grin. His brows bounced together as a stab of pain caught him by surprise.

"You need me to call the nurse?" John asked.

Dean shook his head. "I burned my leg, huh?" he asked, having never really gotten the full report on how badly he'd managed to mangle himself. He felt the ribs, saw his wrists, but everything else was like one big ache and he couldn't really separate burns on his leg from bruises on his hip.

"Yeah," John replied. "Not exactly pretty, but Dr. Rice said it'll heal just fine. Just have some interesting scars."

"S'okay," Dean mumbled. "Not like I wear shorts."

John grunted in response and Dean turned to see him reaching for the controls, lowering the other bed so that he could shift from his chair.

"You gotta be beat," Dean commented, watching as John took a steadying breath.

"It's been a helluva weekend," John grumbled.

When John had managed to get himself on the bed, Dean spoke again. "You weren't supposed to come after me."

John tossed him a look of pure Winchester irritation.

"But I'm really glad you did," Dean finished. "How'd you get down those stairs?"

"Crawled," John said as he grit his teeth, then lifted his casted leg onto the pillows at the foot of the bed.

Dean was quiet for a moment, his face turned toward John, his eyes resting on nothing. "This hunt didn't turn out like we'd planned," he said softly.

"I think that was the problem," John commented on a sigh, raising the bed back up to be level with Dean's. "We didn't—hell, _I_ didn't—have a plan. I just needed…I need to keep moving, I guess."

"I know, Dad," Dean said, watching his father's profile.

"You boys," John said softly. "You're all I got. When Sam left…" He sighed, looking down. "Everything was wrong. _I_ was wrong."

Dean frowned. "What do you mean?"

John shook his head helplessly. "I forgot who you were, kid. I just…I forgot for awhile." John looked over at him. "But you reminded me. And…_she_ reminded me."

"She?" Dean blinked in surprise. "You mean this ghost?"

"All this shit? This town, these people? None of it would have happened if she'd been able to keep her boy," he said. "Your mom _died_ protecting your brother. I, uh…I think I just forgot what that meant for awhile there."

"Dad, you can't protect him from everything," Dean said. "Sam has to find his own way. It's just how he's put together."

John studied him. "And you're okay with that?" He pushed Dean's own doubtful question back at him.

Dean looked down. "Well, no, but…" He glanced back at his father. "It's not really up to us."

John rested his head back and closed his eyes. "How'd you get to be so smart?"

"Must've inherited it from mom, I guess," Dean shrugged.

John chuckled softly. "Always the smart ass."

Dean was quiet for a moment, then, keeping his eyes averted he said softly, "I really wanted it not to be him, Dad. I…I wanted Kwaiya to be innocent."

John didn't open his eyes. "In a way…he was. He was led to this solution by a vengeful spirit, and you know as well as I do he didn't put together what she was telling him to do with what ultimately happened."

"Yeah, well," Dean sighed, wetting is lips and regarding his father's profile, closed eyes, steadily rising chest. "I think…I kinda think I might've always known. Y'know, that he'd done it. I kept dreaming…it was weird, but I kept dreaming about this damn turtle."

John opened one eye, shifting his head to regard Dean curiously. "That's not all that weird, y'know. You used to dream about the monsters we hunted a lot when you were younger."

"This was different, though." Dean shook his head. "This wasn't like those werewolf dreams. I wasn't dreaming about the Kappa; it was like…well, according to Sam, I was trying to tell myself something."

At this John opened both eyes. "What do you mean, _according to Sam_?"

"The Sam in my dream," Dean said, glancing away from John's prying eyes. "He was me, but he looked like him—oh, forget it." Dean eased back against the bed, addressing the ceiling. "The point is, I kept seeing this little turtle. First it was dead, then it was alive…" He closed his eyes and the image of Sam's little-boy eyes surfaced almost immediately. "Then it was a picture on one of Sammy's lame-ass T-shirts."

John huffed out a tired attempt at a laugh.

"I thought it was showing up to tell me that Kwaiya wasn't guilty. I was so busy with this hunt, I didn't really stop to pay that much attention to it. It was just…"

"Creepy," John supplied.

"Yeah, exactly."

His voice a low rumble, the words a sticky rush as if throwing themselves toward freedom, John said slowly. "You are a hunter, Dean. And there are two sides to being a hunter. You're obviously comfortable in action, but," Dean heard him turn his head, "you just gotta remember to be still once in awhile."

Dean waited a beat. "I think you've been hanging around that Quileute guy too long," he mumbled.

"Dean, one of these days, I'm not going to be hunting with you anymore."

Dean lifted an eyebrow. "What do you mean _one of these days_?"

"What I mean is, you're going to be hunting on your own someday. Without Sam, without me. You're too good at this not to. I've never seen a soldier with instincts like yours."

Dean dropped his eyes, unsure how to take the compliment. "Uh, thanks…I think."

"But not every hunt is a shoot first, ask questions later situation," John continued. "And you have to trust those instincts enough to know when to stop and listen and when to move."

Dean swallowed, hesitant to accept the gentle delivery of John's words. "Damn, Dad," he said with wry amusement. "All that was missing was the anthem music playing in the background."

John grunted. "If you weren't beat to hell right now…"

"You'd what?" Dean challenged good-naturedly.

"Don't you worry," John sighed. "I'd think of something."

They slipped into a comfortable quiet.

"Get some sleep, Dean," John ordered.

Dean lay still, thinking. He heard the monitor they had yet to remove from his body. He heard the voices at the nurse's station out in the hall. He heard the low hum of traffic outside the building. He heard his father breathing.

"Dean."

"What?"

"You want outta this place?" John grumbled. "You gotta heal up. You wanna heal up? You gotta rest."

The order was wrapped in a softened buffer of care.

"I'm not sure I can," Dean confessed softly. Everything inside of him was twisted, a fist of truth gripping lifetime of lies and he was afraid if he let go enough to sleep, he might get lost inside of that.

He heard John's bed groan as his dad turned slightly to face him. He couldn't look back. His defenses were too thin; this level of honesty was something to be shared inside of protection, in the dark, with walls shorn up by too much coffee and sharp-witted stories.

They were physically as close as they had ever been at their weakest point. Unless there was no other choice, John hadn't shared a room with his boys. And since Dean had turned eighteen and inherited the Impala, they'd been separated when on the road as well. The only time such proximity between father and son had existed since Dean's memory began its record keeping for evidence, one of them had been in danger of dying.

And Dean knew he wasn't going to forget the feel of his father's hand on his, holding his, anchoring him.

"It's not a pretty job, Dean," John said finally, cutting through the silence with the gruffness reality commissioned. "It's messy and it can hurt like hell. But if we don't take care of the shit we know is out there, then we're no better than the people who let all this happen."

"Yeah, I know," Dean said the words an automatic, instinctive agreement, their lie turning to sour-tasting ash on his tongue.

The wicked truth of Brinnon didn't start with a spirit, it started with a person, and wrapping his mind around that set Dean's internal compass, his clear line between light and dark, spinning.

"We do what we do—"

"—and we shut up about it. I know," Dean muttered.

"No, you don't. We do what we do _because we can_, Dean. Because we see what others ignore. We can't _un_-see it. Not now. Not after," John's voice wavered slightly, a watery undercurrent pulling at Dean's heart, "not after Mary."

Dean's eyes slipped closed and he flinched back from the images he saw there. Opening them once more, he said, "It's all such a fuckin' mess, Dad. How do you see right and wrong when you have _this_." He gestured to the empty room.

"Right is _us_," John said. "Wrong is all the evil in the world. We did our job here, Dean."

"All we did is dig up a twenty-year-old secret and bury a town with it," Dean said.

"Don't start thinking like that, kid," John said. "The minute you stop believing what we do is right, you'll go under. How many more kids would the Kappa have taken if we hadn't stopped it?"

Dean thought about that a moment. Teresa Bowing hadn't been part of the logical pattern of Brooke Marcus' vengeance—if logic could be applied to such a thing. Kwaiya's monster had slipped its leash.

"It's not like what we do is…is some noble quest, Dad," Dean said, weariness and pain thickening his words. He wanted _so badly_ to lay his head back, close his eyes, and disappear into nothing. And yet, he was scared to death of that very thing. "We drive around the country and hunt monsters. How is _that_ right?"

"Dean," John almost barked. "Son, look at me."

It was a command he was too tired to ignore. Turning his head slowly, he met his father's eyes, struck by the fire he saw there. It was a passion Dean had had before, one he'd lost somehow, months ago.

"I'm sorry I never asked you if you wanted to fight this war," John said, plowing forward before Dean could open his mouth to protest. "I wasn't really consulted either, y'know? Hell of it is, we're damn good at this."

Dean looked down, lacking the strength to agree.

"Eyes up," John ordered. Dean looked back at him. "You and I…we've been through the shit these last couple of months. Your brother leaving," John shook his head, filling in meaning with the motion that words could never accurately convey. "It changed us both. But you saved me, kid."

"What are you talking about?" Dean scoffed. "I'da been barbequed if you hadn't—"

"Shut up and let me finish, would you?"

Dean closed his mouth with a click of teeth.

"You never said no. Not once—not in all these hunts. You came _this close_ to drowning in Arizona and you rolled with it. I should be shot for putting you through what I have."

"Well," Dean shrugged. "You did break your leg, so…call it even?"

"What I'm trying to say is," John glanced down, took a breath, then met Dean's eyes once more. "You don't have to worry about our family turning out like these idiots. No matter what you might think, you, me, your brother…we're always gonna need each other."

Dean's eyes burned. He couldn't cry in front of his father. It was simply not possible.

"Yes, Sir," Dean finally choked out, laying back against the pillows, and closing his eyes, feeling for the second time that afternoon tears escape and follow a path down his face.

He was so tired. But somehow, inside his father's words, in the message of reassurance carried there, he'd found a balm. He knew that the words weren't promises; there was no guarantee of safety, no vow of peace.

Their lives were going to be bloody, and they were going to cut a swath through the world with violence, but if they could save a few people along the way, then Dean had to believe that what John said was true: it would all be worth it.

"You still think we could…check on Sam?" Dean asked hesitantly, his voice breaking across his brother's name.

"Hell, he's not gonna want to see me," John replied tiredly.

Dean tried to nod, accepting John's words as truth. He knew his brother better than anyone, and Sam could hold a grudge for an impressive amount of time. It was going to take a lot of time and a special circumstance for Sam to _want_ to be around their father again. Dean was only partially sure the same sentiment couldn't be said of Sam wanting to see him.

"Still…he doesn't have to see me for us to check on him, right?" John amended after a moment.

Dean felt the corner of his mouth tug up slightly. "Right."

"Think you can rest now?"

His body ached, his skin stretched and burning in places. His ribs dug sharp-nailed fingers into his side when he breathed. His head seemed too big for his neck. But his heart was warm and his soul assured. He let the silence after his father's question drag a bit too long, feeling the slightly euphoric sensation of tipping over the edge of consciousness and allowing himself to slip into the waiting arms of relief.

Just before he greeted the darkness with a sigh, he heard his father whisper, "Atta boy."

**Epilogue**

_November, 2001_

Today was the anniversary of the worst day of his life.

In some ways, he began preparing for it the day after it was over, vowing each year that he would find the monster that took his girl, he would seek vengeance, and he would erase it from the earth. On this particular day, however, John found himself staring at his journal, at the next empty page that would mark what was to come and covered what had been, his pen poised in mid air as if he'd forgotten what it meant to write.

After the events in Brinnon, _revenge_ now had a bitter taste, an off-toned ring that made him wince with just the thought of the word. Revenge had driven him to find answers which had led him to more questions which turned him back onto a path of revenge. He'd lived eighteen years spinning on an axis of that vicious circle and had accepted that there was no extricating himself from this pattern, this path. There wasn't hope for heaven; there was only certainty of Hell.

Now, his purpose seemed to narrow, focus pulled from the simple act of retribution and shifting to include the possibility of a greater evil. A larger threat. A greater enemy.

One that was teaching him how to fight it, how to win.

"_Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove."_

A quick, sunny laugh followed the familiar lyrics, and John brought his head up, glancing out through the parted window at his oldest son's profile. Sunlight struck the thinned-out planes of Dean's face and glinted off of his lashes, giving him an ageless appearance. He looked too old to be as young as he was, and yet was too young to hold the weight John always saw in his son's eyes.

Music blared from the speakers of the Impala—rescued from the fall-out of the fire by Gus Spencer the day after the hospital room summit—all four doors of the car open and freeing the sound to the nearly-deserted car lot.

Dean sat on a tipped-back chair, leaning up against the side of the motel building just outside their room, watching Aaron Glover wax the hood of his car, calling instructions in a patient tone—more patient than John had ever been when Dean first started to wash and wax that car—and soaking in the mild warmth of the autumn afternoon.

"Now _this_," Dean was saying to Aaron, "is music."

"So's Nirvana," Aaron retorted.

"Kid." John saw Dean shake his head in mock sadness. "You've got so much to learn."

In the two and a half weeks since the fire, Dean had recovered slowly. After five days of IV antibiotics, Dr. Rice had agreed to let him leave the hospital on the condition that he not do anything strenuous. His leg seemed to heal the quickest, prompting her to comment about their remarkable biology.

The wounds on his wrists were turning to thin pink lines that John knew would eventually fade to white until they practically disappeared. Dean's scars tracked like pale roadmaps recording the pain of his life. Sam's, John knew, were more like his own: dark marks that resembled bruises until one day they simply disappeared.

Dean had taken to wearing a wrist cuff on his right arm covering the wider of the two scars. John couldn't be sure where he'd procured this adornment; only that he slipped it on one morning and hadn't taken it off since. His ribs seemed to be taking the longest to heal, but in all fairness, they'd also taken the worst of the hits. Starting with the Kappa and ending with the fall.

Outside, he was coming together with impressive haste, visibly readying himself for the next hunt, the next job, the next battle. Inside, John mused, Dean was a mystery. After months of struggling—finding new ways to speak out, speak up, speak his mind—Dean had grown quiet. It wasn't the troubling quiet John had witnessed after the Kappa attack: the stillness that felt so foreign and wrong when he regarded his oldest son.

It was more settled, more secure. As if somewhere along the way, Dean had accepted a small corner of this new life: this life without Sam. Redesigning their balance without that presence had almost torn them both apart. But, John realized, they had finally found a stride between the two of them to make it work. To survive however long until Sam came back to them.

Because he would come back. Of that, John was certain.

John breathed in the burnt-leaf smell of the wind as it snaked cool fingers through the opened window. He'd traded up his wheelchair for crutches at Halloween, but would clearly be hampered by a cast for several weeks yet. Looking back down at his journal, he tried to concentrate on what to write to commemorate this day. Outside, Zeppelin drew guitar riffs in the air, and Dean called out to Aaron.

"Make sure you get the wheels. No good getting rust on her rims."

"You order your brother around like this?" Aaron grumbled, but when John looked out through the window again, he saw the kid crouching eagerly in front of the right front tire, polishing the rim as though his life depended on it.

"I did," Dean nodded.

"How'd he like it?"

John saw Dean's crooked grin. "Well, he'd tell you he hated it. And he'd tell _me_ to go to Hell. But I knew. He secretly liked it."

Aaron stopped what he was doing to turn and look over his shoulder at Dean, his young eyes narrowed in doubt. "He _liked_ you bossing him around?"

"Nah," Dean shook his head, popping a Peanut M&M into his mouth. "He liked me paying attention to him."

John looked away, back down at his journal. That was part of his legacy there. Orders meant attention. Instructions equaled love. John sighed. Maybe it was enough that he'd gotten the message across. Maybe it didn't matter _how_ he'd done it.

"_It starts out like a murmur, then it grows like thunder until it bursts inside of you. Try to hold it steady…"_

John closed his eyes as he listened to his son's low voice roll alongside the lyrics.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Hmmm?" Dean paused in his singing to answer Aaron.

"You sure you guys really have to go?"

John opened his eyes, looking at Dean's profile. Dan Glover had changed his mind about their being bad news, it seemed, once Sheriff Bonner and Gus Spencer had spoken with him. When they'd been released from the hospital, returning to their evidence-strewn motel room, he'd been waiting with a deal: keep an eye on Aaron after school while they were healing and he wouldn't charge them further for their room.

Dean had been heartbreakingly eager to agree and John had watched his son once more teach another kid a mixture of things John remembered teaching Dean, and things Dean had learned on his own somewhere along the way.

He watched him teach Aaron to correctly break down and load a hand gun, cautioning him that this was only to be done when absolutely necessary and scaring the shit out of the kid by regaling him with stories of accidental shooting deaths. He watched Dean walk Aaron through the parts of the Impala's engine, how to fix a meal using the most random assortments of foods. He watched Dean make Aaron a rather authentic-looking werewolf costume for Halloween.

And he watched him school Aaron on music. His music. Dean's music. So many of John's memories were tied tightly to the chords, riffs, rhythms, and lyrics that Dean now embraced as his own. He wasn't sure if he should be proud his son had taken up so many of his own vices, or worried that Dean didn't seem to have any uniquely his own.

In the weeks of recovery, Aaron was both a distraction and a method of healing; yet each evening when he left to go back to his place, John saw a shadow pass over Dean's face.

"Yeah, kid, we gotta go," Dean answered finally.

"But you ain't really got a home—and the Sergeant doesn't have a mission right now," Aaron tried.

Dean huffed out a careful laugh. "Kid, there's always a mission. Just kinda depends on if we can fight in it."

"Yeah, okay," Aaron replied glumly.

"Besides," Dean countered. "Who said I don't have a home?"

"Well…you're living in a motel room," Aaron pointed out.

"What do you think you're taking care of right there?"

John looked through the window at Dean as his son nodded toward the Impala.

"A car."

"Not just _any_ car," Dean informed the kid. "I was raised in that car, dude."

"You mean…this car is your home?" Aaron asked, puzzled.

"Damn straight," Dean replied.

John smiled, reflexively remembering bringing the Impala to pick up Mary. Her nose had wrinkled in that way he'd found gut-weakening adorable and she'd declared she didn't like it. About two weeks later, however, she was begging to drive it.

"Can I drive it?" Aaron asked.

John almost laughed aloud.

"Ah, no." Dean shook his head. "You're about seven years too young. But I tell you what. I'll let you pick the music."

"Yes!" Aaron exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air. He hopped behind the wheel and started spinning the dial.

"_I wish I was like you. Easily amused. Find my nest of salt. Everything is my fault. I'll take all the blame…"_

John chuckled as Dean exclaimed, "Dude! I said _music_!"

The diesel-engine rumble of a truck caught John's attention and he looked up to see Gus Spencer pulling into the spot two down from the Impala. With a sigh of resignation, John closed his journal and tucked it into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He glanced around the now-barren motel room. Maps and notes had long ago been pulled from the wall. Weapons had been cleaned, loaded, and stored in the trunk of the Impala. Duffels sat on the floor near the door waiting only to be carried out.

John fumbled with his crutches and rose from the table, making his way to the door, still awkward in his movement, but more assured than he'd been the week prior. He opened the door to see Gus standing next to Dean.

"…said to tell you she'd call when she got there," Gus was saying.

Dean looked over his shoulder at the sound of the opening door. "Marissa went after her man," he informed John.

"Good for her," John nodded. "Gus."

"John," Gus nodded back. "Chester woulda been here, too, but he went with Kwaiya. Said he knew you'd understand."

Dean nodded. John watched his son's profile carefully. Since the town of Brinnon—those who'd been around when Brooke Marcus had been killed, anyway—had stepped up and raised money to put Kwaiya in a private home that treated mental illness rather than allowing him to be sent to a state institution, Dean had been quiet about his feelings concerning the big man's fate.

John suspected that he'd never really know how Dean felt about the outcome of this hunt; he was learning that there were layers to his son that were kept not only out of his sight, but out of the sight of the world. Dean was quite adept at donning the necessary mask for a particular situation.

"You get Dad's truck handled?" Dean asked, deflecting the topic.

"Yep," Gus handed him a key. "This is the only key to the lock. The storage unit is the only one in Sequim, so you won't have trouble finding it when you get back."

"You use the name I told you?" Dean pocketed the key.

"Dwayne Hicks," Gus nodded. "I swear I've heard that name somewhere before."

Dean ignored him, looking over at John. "You ready?"

John nodded, making his way to the Impala.

Dean grabbed the two duffel bags and dropped them into the trunk, circling the car to close the rear doors and giving the vehicle one last check.

They'd agreed that this would be their joint car until John was healed enough to drive, and after overhearing Dean's conversation with young Aaron, he was glad of it. His truck had been stripped down and stored in a town nearby; they could retrieve it soon enough.

"You got another, uh, hunt? Job? Thing?" Gus asked, stuffing his fingers into his pockets.

Dean met John's eyes over the hood of the Impala, Aaron's music hanging between them. John saw a paper-thin film of something that could have been hope, but was tinged with a chaser of resignation, cover the green of his son's eyes for one brief moment before it was absorbed into the rest of the secret thoughts Dean would never share.

"Nah," Dean shook his head. He rested a hand on his still-battered ribcage. "Not yet."

"You don't have to leave, y'know," Gus said quietly. "There's plenty of work around here. Could always use another set of hands."

Dean smiled softly. "Thanks, man. But..."

"We've got some unfinished business," John supplied. He reached out a hand to Gus. "Thank you," he said sincerely as the contractor clasped his outstretched hand. "We don't find a lot of friends doing what we do."

"You're welcome," Gus replied. He looked at Dean. "I can tell you this is something I'll never forget. And I never want to do it again. No offense."

"None taken," Dean grinned, shaking Gus' hand. He moved to the driver's side of the car, peering down at Aaron. Sullenly, Aaron turned off the radio, but refused to look up at Dean. "C'mon, Squirt. Out you go."

"You could take me with you," Aaron attempted.

"Who'd look after your old man if I did that?"

Aaron squinted up at him. "He doesn't need me. He's a grown up."

Dean arched an eyebrow, then pointed toward John without looking at him. "Who do you think keeps the Sergeant out of trouble?"

Aaron looked at John, then back at Dean. "You?"

"You bet your ass, me," Dean replied. "Without me, he'd be lost."

John looked away, swallowing at how true Dean's casual words were.

"So, you got a big job, kid."

"Watching out for my Dad?"

"Exactly," Dean said, tenting his fingers on the top of Aaron's head as he climbed from the Impala. He stuck out his hand as he'd seen the adults do moments before, grinning as Dean took it. "You be good, kid," Dean said, his voice slightly husky.

Aaron stood next to Gus who dropped a protective hand lightly on his shoulder.

"You, too," Aaron replied quietly.

Dean nodded at John. Tossing his crutches into the back, John lowered himself into the passenger side of the Impala.

One day Dean would be hunting alone. He'd be heading out, geared up, ready to take on evil with the conviction that John had instilled in him that he would come out on the side of good. John knew with a father's instinct that day wasn't far away.

_But it's not today_, John thought with relief as his son slid behind the wheel and cranked the keys, igniting the engine. His son may not realize it, but having Dean next to him—even if it was just for now—was better medicine than weeks of resting up.

They lifted their hands in unison, waving good bye to their small farewell party, then pulled out onto the main road. John said nothing as Dean fumbled with the tape deck, but couldn't help but shake his head with a tolerant grin as the first demanding chords slicked up the inside of the car.

"_Back in black, I hit the sack. I've been too long I'm glad to be back. Yes, I'm let loose from the noose, that's kept me hanging about…"_

"Really?" John asked, raising a brow.

Dean beat the rhythm on the crest of the steering wheel with an expression of delicious enjoyment. "Seemed fitting. South, right?"

"South," John nodded. "We should hit Palo Alto sometime tomorrow afternoon."

"You look up any hunts around there?" Dean asked hesitantly.

John shook his head, letting the familiar rhythm of the Aussie band rock through him.

"So…we see Sam," Dean said, "then what?"

"We go someplace else," John replied. He had a promise to keep. A monster to find. His own revenge to extract.

And he still had so far to go.

"Goin' someplace else," Dean repeated. "Story of my life."

John glanced sideways at him. "Story ain't over yet, Son."

Dean only nodded, his lips tipping up at the edges as he turned up the music and let the road lead them on.

* * *

**a/n**: Well, there you go. I hope you felt it worth your time.

Thank you so much to all of you who read, and a special, heart-felt thank you to those that took time to gift me with a review. Your reviews are such a reward for the terrifying risk of putting pieces of me out in the world. Because of your feedback, I've worked to improve my craft and because of your encouragement, I'm venturing into the "real" world of writing.

After I do a bit of fanfic binge reading, I have the pleasure of co-writing with a wonderful friend and great storyteller, Tara aka **LovinJackson**. _Refuto Monumentum_ will be posted on Tara's page [_http:// . net/u/ 981972/ LovinJackson_] and will also be on both of our LiveJournals. The story is set in Season 4 and explores memories repressed and journeys to Hell for both brothers.

I will also be posting a zine story, _Deep Waters Run Still,_ printed in "Road Trip with My Brother 7" by agentwithstyle. Other zine stories to be posted as they are "released."

And next 'solo' project will be _Heroes for Ghosts_, a Western written for my good friend and former beta, Kelly.

If you choose to read, I hope you enjoy.

**Playlist**:

_Black Dog_ by Led Zeppelin

_Wearing and Tearing_ by Led Zeppelin (c'mon, I had to)

_All Apologies_ by Nirvana

_Back in Black_ by AC/DC (Debbie, this one's for you)

**Writing Playlist:**

Some of you have asked if the playlist in the story is what I listen to as I write. The answer is rarely. Usually, the music in the story is selected specifically for a scene either to set a mood or because of the lyrics in that particular song.

When I write, I need more soulful, emo-type music than classic rock. Classic rock is usually reserved for driving—especially in the warmer months when you can have the windows down—or cleaning house, or cooking dinner. That's when I jam. When I write, I pull out the angst and get lost. For this story, I was all over the board, but here are a few artists and albums that got a lot of air time during the course of this story:

30 Seconds to Mars, _This Is War_

Seether, _One Cold Night_

Clint Mansell, _Smokin' Aces Soundtrack_ (check out _Dead Reckoning_. Guh.)

Snow Patrol, _Eyes Open_

Dishwalla, _Live…From the Flow State_

Digital Summer, _Hollow_

Staind, _The Singles Collection_

Matthew Good, _In a Coma: 1995-2005_

Ryan Star, _Songs from the Eye of an Elephant_


End file.
